Jack
by xxxevilgrinxxx
Summary: Jack" takes place at the end of the story "Rider". Riddick, Shazza and Jack have escaped T2 and have picked up a few members along the way. A pirate merc, a merc killer and others now make up the little psychofuck family, on the beautiful planet with a
1. Chapter 1

**Title:** Jack

**Author:** xxxevilgrinxxx

**Rating:** [R]– Violence, language, death, character death.

**Fandom: **PB/AU – Sequel to "Trust Me" and "Rider". AU to "Last Dance Redux".

**Pairing:** Riddick/Shazza, Jack/OMC, Various OM/FC's

**Disclaimer:** Riddick, Shazza, Jack and Toombs from the Pitch Black and TCoR universes belong to their respective owners. All other characters are the creation of the author. "Trust Me", "Rider", and "Last Dance Redux", their plotlines, settings and characters, are the creations of the author. No harm is intended in the use of the PB/TCoR characters. "The Moorglade" and all references to Sunhillow are concepts from the Jon Anderson album, "Olias of Sunhillow". All other characters and places that you don't recognize are a product of my imagination.

**Summary:** _"__Jack"_ takes place at the end of the story "Rider". Riddick, Shazza and Jack have escaped T2 and have picked up a few members along the way. A pirate merc, a merc killer and others now make up the little psychofuck family, on the beautiful planet with an interesting history: Trieste 9. They have managed to drive off the Company once but will they be successful a second time?

**Feedback:** Constructive feedback is always appreciated.

**Archive:** FDB/FF

**Notes: **The rating may change as the story continues. Please check back.

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**Chapter 1**

The air that blew across her arms was cool and, with her eyes closed, Jack tilted her chin up, filling her lungs with its clean greenness.

"They're coming back, Jack," Riddick had said. He didn't say who was coming but Jack knew. The Company was coming, just as they had always expected.

Breathing deeply, she reached out, scenting more than just the air. She took in the subtle way that the breeze riffled through the grass, so gently that it only moved the very tops of the blades. The top few inches dried as the sun rose, still wet with dew beneath.

Grass like that would give away any intruder that tried to walk through it. Care had to be taken, as it would only take a slightly stronger breeze to move the grass from beneath as well, making surveillance based on the movements of grass alone difficult.

The scent of the earth underneath gave away the time of day, even with her eyes closed. Early morning, just past sunrise. The dew hadn't yet evaporated, settling on the ground. It was the fertile dampness that gave a bottom note to the air.

The forest to the right of her was a darker scent, and still. It would be another hour or so before the air would fill with the sound of birdsong, until shafts of sunshine broke through the canopy and dappled the ground below. Like the telltale grass, the trees would give away any intruder, sending up clouds of the graceful, long-tailed black birds into the sky. As clear a warning of danger as any siren.

All of this knowledge and more she had soaked up from the man that stood to the right of her, at her elbow. Riddick. The scent of him was as familiar to her as her own. As he had taught her to do, she put Riddick, the others that had come out to watch the flight of the gliders, and her surroundings into the terrain that she had created out of nothing more than scent and memory.

_'Can't always trust your eyes.'_

At first it had been a hard thing, to imitate Riddick; she wasn't completely sure what it was that he was doing because he didn't put words to it, just expected her to understand. Difficult to concentrate on each particular scent in order to separate out what fit and what didn't. Difficult to disregard what she thought her eyes knew about her terrain, to re-order the scene based on a sense other than sight. Perhaps the most difficult was accepting that so much of what Riddick did was done on gut instinct and feelings.

Feelings. It wasn't something that he spoke of and so he hadn't been able to tell her, to make her understand, what it was to reach out with every sense. Many years ago, Jack had made the mistake of blurting out that he did what he did on feelings and got a glare and a snort in return.

It didn't change anything and she knew that she had been right. So did he. Riddick could call it anything he wished but Jack knew that what he was capable of has as much to do with intuition, interpretation and feeling as it did on any skill he had honed. Like so many of the things that she had learned from Riddick, she seized on it, expanded on it. _That_ she kept to herself.

All of these things Jack took in before she opened her eyes and gazed across the vast grassland sea of Trieste 9.

There was no outward change but Jack could feel the difference. Riddick was right, they were coming.

"You hear it?" Riddick asked quietly, his voice low and for her ears alone.

"A low hum. It sounds far off. What is it?" Curiosity fired her as surely as it did Riddick. The hum was wrong. It wasn't loud enough to drive the birds from their roosts or have the villagers behind them startle, but it was there, and it was wrong. The wrongness of the sound, in this place, had Jack focus intently on it.

"Drop ship, and it's still a fuck of a long way off." Riddick stared off across the grassland, far into the distance, where the line of the horizon softened details into a fuzzy line.

"Close enough."

The sound of riffling grass alerted them as someone came up and joined them. There was no need to turn; there was only one other of their number that would know the sound of a Company drop ship so well that he could pick the sound from so far off. Duncan Warfield settled into the middle space between her and Riddick.

Shazza came up and joined them. Like the air, the grass, the earth and the forest, Jack took in these elements and fit them into her 'verse as well, comforted in how well they settled into her acceptance of things.

"How far," Jack pressed, determination setting her jaw in a hard line.

"Eager?" The snort was little more than a muted whuff as Riddick took his eyes off the horizon and settled on Jack.

No, it wasn't so much eagerness she felt as a certain urgency. Still, verbal sparring was as big a part of what they shared, of his training, as anything else and she wasn't about to step back from that now. "Aren't you?"

One corner of Riddick's mouth pulled down and his head tilted to the side in lieu of an answer. As eager as she really felt, which meant that yes, he was eager to go see what it was. The concern was heavier but neither said it out loud.

Which left it to Duncan. "The Moorglade's too far off. We'll need to go back to the village for horses."

Looking back over her shoulder, Jack took in Shazza and further on, the glider. They said nothing but Shazza nodded once curtly and spun on her heel, heading back across the grass.

"Shouldn't go alone; you know that," Riddick said, reaching out and touching Jack's arm, just above the elbow.

Looking back towards Shazza, Jack cracked a wry grin and fired back, "I'm not. Shazza and I can take the glider. It'll be a little slow; they're not made for two but we're light enough that it should work."

Jack was nodding as she explained, running over what the glider was capable of.

"Not alone," he insisted, his fingers just touching her arm. "That could be Company up there. You ready for that?"

Jack didn't pull away. If Riddick wanted to hold onto her until they were both dust, he would. This was different. In the years since the hammerhead planet, Riddick asserted less, touched more. Without talking about it, she and Shazza had accepted the subtle change. Quiet, in case he pulled back.

"Ready? You tell me, you trained me, am I ready?" Said in all seriousness, Jack tilted her head to the side, a mirror of Riddick.

The ghost of a smirk and then he pulled his hand back. It was all the answer he gave. Yes, she was ready, or he wouldn't have let her go.

"I'm not going alone," Jack reassured. "I'm going with Shazza." She looked back over her shoulder and watched as Shazza reached the glider, standing at the wing. "The extra weight might slow us down a bit but we we'll head out first. Duncan's going back for horses; you can catch up with us easily enough."

"Fair 'nough." Riddick watched as Jack loped off to join Shazza at the glider. "Bring a spare horse," he shouted to Duncan, who was standing with a small knot of villagers, and then he was off, disappearing into the high grass.

"Fuck." Jack walked backwards, watching him until he disappeared.

"What did you expect?" Duncan limped beside her, matching her pace with silent effort. It had been seven years since he had been injured. The limp hadn't gotten any better but he had learned to cope with it well enough.

"I didn't expect he'd want to run there on foot."

"He won't get far and he definitely won't have to run all the way. We'll catch up with him when we come back with horses."

"Better make it quick," she grinned as she reached the glider.

"Watch it, I'm even older than he is," Duncan said with a grin, waving at one of the men of the village. On his way past, he patted the wing of the glider.

Jacob Underhill, the man she had taken as her husband, was the last of the villagers to disappear through the forest. Jack raised her arm in a salute to him before he disappeared.

"Are you sure this thing will take two?" Shazza asked as she walked around the back of the glider to stand just behind the left wing. Like the Moorglade, the gliders needed a running start. Unlike the Moorglade, they were maneuverable and could be pulled or pushed by anyone and she had found out through trial and error that the simplest method was to stand behind the wing on the windward side and run.

The village craftsmen had built in handholds, both on the wing and on the glider, for when it came time to stop running and jump aboard before the lightweight rig caught the winds over the grassland and took off.

As for Shazza's question, Jack wasn't entirely sure that the glider would take two, in that it was something she had never tried before. But they didn't weigh much and now was as good a time as any to test the theory.

"Positive."

Shazza cast a look at Jack across the glider's wing. Even at thirteen, Jack had been fearless, or as fearless as a girl of thirteen, on her own and chased by monsters, could be. Fearless, but never stupid with her life, or with anyone else's. _'Like Riddick that way,'_ she thought.

The glider parted the grass, the blades hitting the underside of the wings with small, sharp snaps. As they broke into a run on either side of the glider's body, the wings cleared the grass. By herself, Jack would have jumped aboard by now, leaping onto the running board at the same time as she grabbed the handhold higher up on the frame. With two to carry, she ran a little faster, pushing the glider even further into the wind.

Grinning, she looked over at Shazza and, as one, the two women reached for their handholds and jumped aboard, hooting as the body of the plane dipped once, nudging the tops of the grass. Not making excuses or apologies, they crashed together briefly in the small space of the glider's body before Shazza settled behind Jack, holding onto the struts that spanned across the back.

Comfortable in charge, in control, Jack pulled a lever that adjusted the altitude, raising them up higher over the grass and leveling them out when they skimmed five feet over the surface of the very tops of the grass.

Bellowing against the force of the wind, Jack leaned back, bumping Shazza to get her attention. "A little slow, but we're good! Here! Take this and help me turn her fully into the wind!"

The weight shifted slightly as Shazza pressed into the wooden frame and then the glider jagged, turning to use the wind that sang over the grass. With the altitude lever, Jack kept the nose from rising with the new force and held them to their course, racing in the direction of the sounds of the drop ship. In the direction of Riddick.

Up ahead, the tall grass parted and moved, shifting as Riddick cut a swathe through the green with no pretense of stealth. Even then, the grass sea of Trieste closed behind and swallowed him up, as though it sought to do what he wouldn't: hide his tracks.

"We're going to over-take him!" Shazza shouted as they closed on the figure of Riddick.

That was a risk Jack had considered, and not voiced; sure that when the time came that she could ease back the glider's speed.

"Here!" Jack shouted as she leaned back to press a strap into Shazza's hands. "Don't pull all at once!" The wind cut Jack's words and she opted to show Shazza what she meant. A quick study, Shazza imitated Jack's short, intermittent tugs on the strap. Looking once across the wings, she noticed the flaps, the drag. In seconds, she had a rhythm that kept the glider from reaching its full speed without jarring.

"We're coming alongside!"

The ruffle of a dark brown cloak and a glimpse of goggles as Riddick glanced over his shoulder at the fast-approaching glider. Grim-faced, Jack gauged the distance, only breaking into a grin when she was sure that he was well clear of the span of the wings. Distance was hard to judge in full flight, with a moving target and that was something that she kept in mind as they came alongside Riddick.

The luxury of looking across the wing at him as he ran was a brief one, and one she wouldn't take at all if she was alone; she looked forward, staring far out over the grass. Behind her, Shazza breathed heavily as she strove to keep their pace to that of the running man, and Jack filed that away as well. More adjustments would have to be made. Now that she knew that the gliders could take two, it wasn't that far to see that they _should_ carry two. One to pilot and one to fight? But it would have to be made easier for the pilot. Not everyone was her. Not everyone was Shazza.

None of the men had offered to take the gliders, preferring the horses or the heavy antlered beasts that they had bred for war. It left the village women and Jack wasn't sure how she would work that, especially if the gliders were too difficult to fly.

All of this flew through Jack's head as they paced Riddick who continued to lope as gracefully as any antelope through the tall grass. Riddick had run her before; pushing her to the point of exhaustion and beyond. To where her mind shut down and her body took over. So Jack knew that Riddick hadn't reached the end of his endurance, no matter how she teased him about his age, but she was glad that Shazza kept the pace of the glider to Riddick's instead of pushing for more speed.

Even as she looked ahead for any sign of the drop ship, her awareness was pulled behind them, for any sign of Duncan and the villagers. The village wasn't far off. Through the woods a short way and they would reach the outskirts of the village. Jacob would insist upon coming but she knew that Duncan would keep their number low. There were only so many horses and he would want to take men he could rely upon completely. Johns, Jacob, Theo, perhaps a few more.

As she ran the numbers through her head, she felt a distant rumble, but from behind them this time. The horsemen. The sound swelled and she fought against the urge to turn and watch, fighting to keep her attention focused ahead, on the ominous silence where the hum of the drop ship had filled their thoughts before.

Thunder shook the ground, shook the very air as the horsemen raced to make up the distance. The roar separated into distinct hoofbeats as they drew closer and Jack shot a quick look across the wing to Riddick.

The robe swept clean from his right side, Riddick watched behind as the cloud of men and horses closed the distance. Never entirely comfortable with the animals, he slowed, letting the glider move out ahead.

For a few moments, he fell out of Jack's line of sight as the glider moved into the fore, leading a charge of horsed men across the grass.

As much as she wanted to watch, it was her duty to keep them in the air. To stop now would mean that the horses would have to wait until she and Shazza could get her off the ground again. To stop now would mean that the men could reach the drop ship before her, without her, and that wasn't an option. When they reached whatever it was that they faced, she intended to be standing at Riddick's side. That was how it was meant to be; that was what they had trained for.

The horsemen swept alongside the racing glider, slung out wide to either side and Jack took her eyes off the horizon to catch quick glances of the spectacle. Jacob, Theo, Johns and at least a dozen other men from the village rode hard on the local blunt-faced, sturdy dun horses, but she couldn't see either Duncan or Riddick.

"Behind us!" Shazza shouted, just as Jack dared again to look back, making the glider shimmy to the right. The horsemen on that side pulled away from the pale grey-green wing of the glider; at their current speed, the elegant wing could easily sever a horse's head, or a man's. It would also kill the two women when the glider slammed into the earth and they'd likely be trampled by the horses into the bargain.

Sure as her word, Duncan and Riddick were coming up hard from behind and Jack was sure she could feel the hot breath from the horses as they ate up the ground between them. The villagers were well accustomed to riding horseback, almost from the moment they could walk and jumping into the saddle of a running horse was a childhood pastime, but Riddick had different experiences and different memories. He would never be entirely comfortable near them.

A flash of dark brown edged the other horsemen out of the way as first Riddick and then Duncan swept up the right alongside the glider's wing.

Not as graceful or sure as the other riders, Riddick clung to the animal's back, grim-faced and white-knuckled. The sharp crack of the wind tore his robe out back behind him, exposing the knives he wore sheathed to his thighs and lower back. Normally obscured, they were visible to all and, other than Duncan, the other horsemen edged further away from him. It didn't matter that there was little Riddick could do on a horse but hold on; the blades commanded distance.

The horses ate up the ground in great strides, their ears laid close against their heads as they flattened out, racing for the horizon. Ahead, the natural line of the earth was pierced by the sudden appearance of the dull grey metallic hulk of the drop shop. Its entry crushed the grass flat in a wide circle and it squatted in the middle, its partially retracted tow cable trailing uselessly into nearby rocks.

Two of the horses on the far left shied at the sight, breaking the hard line as they approached the alien ship. As two went, more followed, and the horsemen pulled back on their reins, slowing in the face of the unknown.

© Copyright December 2009 xxxevilgrinxxx


	2. Chapter 2

_Thanks and feedy for reviews begins below the current chapter...

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**Chapter 2**

The glider's wings snapped in the breeze that had kicked up. The horsemen dismounted and held onto the reins of their mounts, pulling the beasts back slightly across the grass towards one of their number that stood away from the strange circle and held the reins of the gathered horses, murmuring quiet words to them and soothing them as much as he could.

Bucking under a gust, the glider trembled as though it would take off on its own and Jack tightened her fist on the handhold. "I'll stay with her," Shazza said from around the wing as she and Jack got the glider turned around, facing back the way they had come. If they were to get out in a hurry, Jack didn't want to have to take the time and distance to turn her; she wanted to be able to get in and run.

"'Kay," Jack said as she let go of her side of the glider, casting a glance at Riddick and Duncan, who stood at the edge of the flattened grass, looking at the drop ship. "I won't be long," she added, knowing that Shazza wanted to join them.

The rest of the men stood in a rough semi-circle with the drop ship in the middle. Squat, ugly and utilitarian, it crushed the grass beneath it and threw up broken divots of earth at all its sharp points. The shark-like point of its nose dug into the earth and its back end blotted out the sun when they got too close.

The ship bore no name, just a series of numbers painted on its side in weathered dark red paint. Even in that it was utilitarian. Riddick and Duncan had seen hundreds, possibly thousands, of them over the years and every one of them looked alike.

Stepping into the circle of crushed grass, Riddick moved along the side of the ship, not quite touching its sides. Just close enough to feel the small bit of residual heat from the ship's entry. Behind him, Duncan limped, eyeing the numbers along the side of the ship.

"Four nineteen," Duncan said, reading off the freighter ID number.

"Don't mean much on its own," Riddick said quietly, slowing down to let the other man catch up. By themselves the numbers meant next to nothing. The first group of three numbers corresponded to a larger ship in the fleet but as the drop ships were so many, there had to be a way to tie them to a particular unit, a particular freighter.

"Better on its own than not," Duncan reached the tail of the ship and stopped to rest, leaning almost reluctantly against its skin. Riding a horse meant that he didn't have to walk, or try to run, but it took a toll on him, especially after he had first dismounted.

Both men turned as Jack came around the side. If not for the telltale shadow, they wouldn't have seen her until she was right on top of them. It made Riddick smile, knowing that she had gotten so close and that even he didn't make her. They'd been playing that game for years.

"Nobody on that side. Anything?" she asked, pointing as she ducked under the tail of the ship, one hand resting on the metal as she came around.

"Registry number."

"Doesn't mean anything by itself," Duncan added, for her benefit.

"By itself," she said, underlining the missing explanation. Her expression sharpened as she focused on Duncan. "So it means something in addition to...?"

Riddick huffed at her questioning, continuing to walk around the ship, looking for the hatch. "In addition to the code that says where it came from."

"How could we get that?" she asked, falling in neatly beside Riddick as they moved to the other side of the ship.

"Don't think we can, or should," Duncan answered for Riddick. "Johns could probably get a call out but there's a good chance the codes've been changed. It's the first thing I would have done. That, and if the Company is sending ships here, they'd probably pick up on anything we tried to get out."

"Guess that rules that out."

"Better off staying quiet about it. If we have to get a call out at some point, advertising that we can do it is pretty stupid." Riddick stopped a few feet from the hatch opening and leaned his head almost gingerly against the hull. Listening.

"Anybody home?" Jack whispered, right behind Riddick.

The sound of the wind and the nickering of the horses was all they heard for a couple of minutes as Riddick listened. Even though Duncan was behind her and she couldn't see him, she knew he listened too. Resting a hand on the blade strapped to her hip, she closed her eyes and tried to pick out what she knew Riddick and Duncan would be able to hear. Hearing nothing but the same wind and horses she had heard before, she remained quiet. If either of the two men heard something she couldn't, she didn't want to advertise. And she didn't want to interrupt.

Waiting made her itch and she strained for stillness. Riddick was always telling her to be patient, to wait. It used to drive her crazy. She waited to move, to act, but he always told her to wait, and watch. It made her itch. She waited.

It seemed to take forever but Riddick finally crept forward, not saying anything, not making a sound. There was a recessed access panel to the left of the hatch and he eyed it carefully, running first a fingertip and then a knife tip along a seam between the keypad and the casing. Jack moved towards him but Duncan tapped her arm, pointed at the doorway and shook his head. It pleased her that he didn't try to pull her behind him but that had never been his style. She stayed back from the entryway.

No one spoke.

The click seemed loud in the silence and the three of them took a step back, falling into a wary crouch, ready to fight if anything came out. There was a barely audible hiss of air as the pocketed door retracted into the wall of the ship. Tense, they waited for any sound, a sign that there was anything inside, but nothing came.

Riddick held up his hand, displaying the blade he held against his palm and then he slipped inside without a sound. Beside her, Duncan reached out for her arm but he didn't move ahead of her into the ship. They just waited. A metallic double tap from Riddick's blade came from within, echoing, and only then did Duncan move toward the hatch. Just as they got to the doorway he stepped to the side and let her step up onto the slanted, corrugated floor of the drop ship.

Once inside, she turned and reached for Duncan's arm and, wrist to wrist, pulled him up into the ship. A tap on his arm and she let go, moving further into the dark after Riddick.

The inside was cool, almost cold. For years, the only ship she had been in was the Moorglade, and with its organic lines and warm wood, it was nothing like the inside of the Company ship.

_'Great, Jack, you're giving yourself the willies,'_ she thought. It was dumb but that was exactly how the ship felt. It wasn't just the temperature that raised goosebumps along her arms. The ship felt eerie and alien. Wrong. Didn't belong.

When she had first run, all those years ago, she had moved from ship to ship without giving much thought to where she was, never mind to the ships themselves. She had never felt this way on Theo's ship, _'The Odyssey'_. Not even on the _'Hunter-Gratzner'_ and if ever there was a doomed ship, it was her. Back then, a ship was a ship was a ship.

In that, the Company ship held a jarring sense of familiarity. Up ahead of her in the dim, Riddick crouched and, with the tip of a blade, opened a small metal crate below one of the seats. She was curious but his silence held her back. The air behind her felt cold and her skin crawled. There had been people there, once.

_'Seven.'_

There were six seats on either side of the ship but only seven of them had their straps loosened. The rest were tightly secured and she didn't think anyone would go to the trouble of making the straps so neat if they were landing in a hurry.

"The horsemen are searching the grass now, trying to see where they might have gone," Duncan said as he came up behind Jack, eyeing the seats.

"Seven," Jack mouthed.

"Why only seven?" she pressed on quietly, not really expecting an answer.

Duncan smiled at her, his hand on her shoulder, "Would more be better?" and then he was past, looking at the contents of the box Riddick had pulled out.

"More'd make sense. Wouldn't they want more than seven?"

"Not if it's the right seven. Anything?" he asked Riddick, who harrumphed by way of an answer. Feeling certain that nothing in the box would result in an alarm or an explosion, Riddick dumped the contents out onto the floor of the ship, stopping them from rolling away with his boot.

"Nothing. Not a fucking thing," he finally got out as he got to his feet and looked around the empty space.

Jack wondered at what he saw, and how he saw it differently than she did. _'A whole lot of purple is how,'_ she thought, as she dropped to the ground and took a closer look at what Riddick had abandoned. There was nothing personal in the crate; it looked like a generic care kit. A selection of MRE's and other items that would belong in any hygiene pack. Nothing of value. Nothing the soldiers apparently thought worth the bother of bringing with them. Nothing they sought to secure, which could be said about the ship itself.

"These guys aren't coming back here, are they?" she said, more to herself than anything.

"Don't look like it." Riddick made a last circle of the interior of the ship, poking here and there with the tip of his knife without conviction.

Behind him, Duncan followed and made his own examination. It had the feel of a routine well practiced rather than something he expected to see results from. Old habits.

Up on her feet, Jack moved toward the hatch, keeping to the side of the doorway until she was sure that there was nothing outside. That too had the feeling of rote.

The air outside was almost painfully bright and she raised a hand to shade her eyes. She could feel the weight of Riddick behind her but she didn't drop down, just stood at the lip of the hatch and looked out across the grass. At the rocks where the drop cable snaked off between jutting boulders.

Only when her eyes had adjusted did she hop down into the smashed grass. Riddick followed, Duncan just behind. She didn't turn to wait for them but expected that they would follow.

"Why would they just drop it here, with no way for a larger ship to get it back?" she asked, pointing toward the thick cable.

"Weren't planning on getting it back." Duncan limped toward the tow cable, resting a foot on it as he eyed down its length until it disappeared into a nest of broken stone. Even partially retracted, it extended quite a ways.

From their previous encounter with the Company drop ships, Jack knew that a larger ship wouldn't risk getting close to Trieste 9, or face getting pulled into her atmosphere where the electromagnetic pulse generated from the planet's surface would cripple any ship that remained in orbit.

"Why would they do that? I mean, couldn't they just drop them here and take the drop ship with them? Wouldn't that make more sense?" Jack was into the large broken boulders now, following the thick cable. It didn't make sense to her. Wouldn't stealth have been better?

"They probably don't care that we know," Riddick said as he caught up to her, looking here and there amongst the stones. "That, or they were in one hell of a hurry."

"Everyone would have heard if the Company stayed around long enough to retrieve the ship. Not the first time that's been done." Both Riddick and Jack looked over at Duncan as he picked his way through the rocks. Riddick had his own experiences with the Company but Duncan _was_ Company and had been for years. At Bishop's side he had taken part in countless Company wars. If anyone was familiar with their tactics, it was him.

"That they dropped it here?" Duncan continued when he had caught up, "they don't really care if anyone spots the drop ship. The men are already on the ground."

"They got help." Riddick stood at the place where the grass ran out, where it no longer forced its way through the shattered stone that led into the mountains.

That made sense to her. She felt cold as she looked out into the rocks. That too was familiar. It felt like the canyon on the hammerhead planet. The wind off the grass sea whispered and echoed as it moved down through the stones, making it hard to tell if what she heard was the wind or something else.

A perfect place to hide. Like Riddick, Jack didn't trust luck. There were no coincidences, no accidents, so she knew that he was right, she felt it. The Company soldiers had help, someone that knew the terrain, knew the best places to hide, go to ground.

It had been a long seven years but the last time that the Company had made a run at them, they had also found allies on Trieste 9.

_'Not everybody loves this place like I do. Like we do,'_ she thought, knowing that the others were thinking along the same lines. In the last battle, not all of the raiders had been wiped out. Not for lack of an effort but they had slipped away through the forest, to bide their time.

"They could be anywhere in there. There's no way we could find them if they didn't want to be found." Duncan picked up a stone and skipped it out over the ravine. "We're going to have to send trackers in after them."

A small tilt of the head was all that they got from Riddick as he looked out into the unforgiving terrain. Jack got it; she wanted to head out after the soldiers. In her head she ran through all the reasons that Riddick, or Duncan for that matter, would give her for why they should stay put.

_'Wait, watch,'_ Riddick would say. Duncan would say that it was too easy to just walk right in, that it would be expected and so likely a trap. And yet all of them stood at the edge of the rocks and looked because that was human nature, their nature.

It was work for her to pull her eyes away, past the downed ship to the horsemen that circled out in the grass, looking for tracks. At Shazza, who stood by the glider and stared back at her.

Without turning back to ask Duncan and Riddick, she decided. "We can send half the horsemen into the rocks to start tracking the soldiers but we need to get back to Sunhillow, to get the Moorglade ready if the Company ships come back." Waited out a long heartbeat and then turned to find both Duncan and Riddick watching her.

The silence felt like forever and then Riddick walked silently across the stones. A quick nod shared between the two men and they were all walking back out into the grass.

It was the first time that she had given Riddick something that felt like an order. It felt good. Comfortable. Right.

The hand on her shoulder was brief, just a light touch and then it was gone. Riddick.

_'How the fuck does he always seem to know?'_ she wondered. In the years of training that she had endured under Riddick, he had given her a hell of a lot of orders. Some whispered, some shouted. And some of them he didn't even put voice to at all. When she got those, Riddick always let her know in some small way that she did right. After a while, Riddick had to tell her less and less what had to be done. She acted and expected that he would follow. But she had never voiced it as an order before.

It wasn't like the Moorglade, where she was a captain. Even then, she gave directions, not so much orders. _'What does that make me here, off the Moorglade? Some sort of fucking general?'_ It didn't seem as funny as she thought it would.

Shielding her eyes against the sun's glare, she looked out, seeking one rider in particular. _'There.'_ Jacob was at the head of a group of riders who had circled far around the drop ship and were coming back in her direction. She raised her arm and waved at him, smiling when he answered with one of his own. Breaking into a short run, she hopped over boulders until she stood close against the warm side of the horse. Out of habit she reached out first for the animal's bridle and then scratched a spot between its eyes. Letting go, she rested a hand on Jacob's calf as she looked up at him.

"There's no one inside," he said simply, tilting his chin towards the ship. It was obvious. If there had been someone inside, they would be pinned out on the grass.

"Think they went down into the rocks." Her hand tightened slightly and the horse nickered, sensing the tension. "We think they had to have help."

In the saddle, Jacob nodded, taking his eyes off her and looking out into the stones. "That's not good."

_'A master of understatement,'_ she smirked a little, looking down at the grass. He had picked up her manner of speaking in the years that they had been together. While they spoke, four other riders separated and came up behind Jacob, staying quiet to mind their business as best they could, given the circumstances.

"Don't worry. We'll head out and track them as far as we can." Jacob looked over his shoulder and nodded at one of the men next to him. "If Luke can't find them in there, no one can." Leaning over, Jacob ran a hand over Jack's shaved head. "Be back before you get a chance to miss me."

It was something she had said to him frequently, before leaving on her hunting trips with Riddick, so she grinned at their shared joke. "Be back before dark if you can. Those rocks are a bad place to be." Looking out at the stones, she suppressed the cold chill at the thought of the horsemen, of Jacob, trapped in the canyons. For the second time, it made her think of the hammerhead planet.

It was hard to watch the horsemen pick their way through the rocks and Jack turned away. To find Riddick watching her. Saying nothing, of course. She knew that he wouldn't, feelings weren't his thing, but he would stay close to her until Jacob came back. Still, it was hard and the sooner she was on the move, doing something, the sooner the feeling would be pushed into the background.

"Let's get back," she said as she set off across the grass toward the glider.

"I'm going back with you." Riddick fell in beside her, walking close on her left side. She didn't like other people so close to her, even now, but Riddick was always the exception. Every so often his elbow would brush her arm but neither of them separated.

Up ahead, Duncan and Theo were horsed, their mounts circling anxiously as their riders tried to hold them still. The remaining riders gathered behind them and waited for word.

Riddick came up behind Shazza and murmured something in her ear, after which Shazza ducked under the wing and broke into a run, vaulting gracefully onto the back of the horse Riddick had rode in on."You mean to say you're coming back with me on the glider?" Jack asked.

"I mean to say." With that, Riddick gripped one of the handholds and waited for Jack to take her place at the opposite wing.

"I wasn't even sure this thing would take me and Shazza, but you?" Jack whispered, as much as the wind would allow.

"Good time to find out, don't you think?"

They both broke into a run, Jack keeping pace easily with Riddick. In no time, the glider rose above the grass and still they ran.

"You just don't want to get on that horse again," she said with a snort as she leaped aboard, Riddick right behind her.

"Not something I was ever suited for," he said, close to her ear as they both found their places. The glider dipped heavily into the grass and Jack sucked in a breath, fearing that the plane would bottom out completely, but she fought to rise above. Behind her, Riddick reached for the strap that controlled the wing's flaps, as Shazza had done. He'd been watching. Of course he'd been.

Jack could ride. Not as well as Shazza and definitely not as well as Jacob or the others, but she could ride. Which didn't mean that she liked to. What she liked was the feel of a ship beneath her. The Odyssey. The Moorglade. Even the gliders. Something she had some control of. _'Always got to be the captain,'_ she thought.

"We close to a ley line?" he raised his voice above the wind and pressed against her back to make sure she heard him.

Pointing with her chin, she indicated a spot a short distance from the other riders. The paths of energy ran all over the surface of Trieste 9. They created the electromagnetic pulse that made most conventional forms of technology useless planetside, kept ships out of their sky, and made it necessary for the drop ships in the first place. It was the force that, along with the Rider – Riddick – drove the Moorglade. Jack knew that it would, in all likelihood, drive the gliders as well, but she had only ever tried it solo and for very short distances.

_'It's a day for first,'_ she thought as she looked across the greass to where she knew the ley line ran.

"Why don't we open this bitch up and see what she'll do?"

"Holy men allowed to say bitch?" she shouted back at him, the wind ripping the words from her.

Like so many of the things Riddick said, it was seductive in its own strange way. It spoke to something she had wanted to do but hadn't yet. Why resist what she had wanted to do in the first place?

Mindful of the horsemen, Jack pulled the glider in a gentle arc that would take them into the path of the ley line.

The air changed first. An electrified tingle that raised all of the short hairs on her arms, leaving her feeling invigorated. Alive. Her body suffused with cool, grass-scented air that made her feel at once miles above and still tied to the earth. A part of it. A part of everything. The science behind it was something that she and Theo had looked into for years but Theo said it best. When it came right down to it, sometimes a thing was just meant to be believed. That believing it _was_ understanding it, no matter how many other ways she tried to see.

The glider's wings picked up a little higher above the grass. Felt lighter. Felt stronger. And no doubt about it, it was faster.

Behind her, Riddick laughed and let up on the straps that slowed the craft's speed. Let the wind and the power of the earth take them where she would take them. Even in the Moorglade, that was the hardest moment for her. That last second before she simply trusted. It was only a second. She always let go. Gave over. They both hooted as the glider flew free, soaring faster and faster along the line of power until she could scarcely catch her breath.

They easily overtook the horses and still she knew it wasn't as fast as the Moorglade. But it felt faster. Closer to the earth, more exposed, it felt faster than anything she had ever experienced. It was pure speed and power. And it was hers. Her doing.

_'Slowing this down is going to be a real bitch.'_

© Copyright December 2009 xxxevilgrinxxx

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**Saismaat:** I wanted to try to get a feeling of the magical qualities of where they are, as well as fleshing out a little of the characters, without going all explainey :)

Scenting is a sort of a regionalism, but mostly, it's a notion from "Watership Down". I'll have to ponder that one, because it seems like the *right* word to me, even if it isn't really the right word. It's still fresh, so I may come back when I'm a few chapters in and change that.

I didn't want her to be not quite human, as much as "much more Riddicky", which will have a purpose later on. Also, it's the planet that's more magical, and it has an effect on its inhabitants. It has the same sort of affect on Theo, Shazza, Duncan, and Riddick, as well as the others. I've been trying very hard to not make it over the top, all powersy, because that sucks, but I'll be watching.

To a guy, a glare and a snort are two entirely different things. Both are supposed to be words and can sometimes even be complete sentences, or so I'm told. Paired together? Yeeks. I tinkered with the sentence and yes, I had one too many :)

"getting back to that run through the metaphoric darkness. "  
I see them both doing this a lot. They can both make freinds and exist in other worlds, but I think they exist best in that one.

"I like the communication in that. I might not have repeated "the glider." My eye stumbled on it. "  
Glider is one hell of a word to find other words for, ha! And, like guys everywhere, I can't help but call the glider a 'she', so when you've got two women already, a third female is just odd. I've been working on changing it but man, talk about difficult. Sentence tinkered with :)

"Will beyond flesh. "  
It's how I see them both, so that's a perfect description, thanks!

"I like the "she had taken," though I'm still uncomfortable with the way that went down. "  
The 'she had taken' was quite deliberate, as was her waiting until she was ready to marry him, not the other way around. If she had said 'no', there's no way it would have happened. She was definitely trained to deal with it herself but then there's Riddick, who would have gutted anyone that dared. Like Riddick's choices that led him to where he is, there will be new choices to make in the frontier that are coming up.

The word light...damn, you're right. Okay, I won't say what I changed, but I'm going through this chapter and see what I can do with it. Writing longhand first tends to have me repeat...a lot.

"beginnings, middles, and ends."  
this story started to come together after I finished Rider (and the idea of it was in there when I first began, two stories ago, in Trust Me). There's a definite end in place :)

Thanks for reading, I'm glad you're joining me for this one as well.

**Batty:** Jack. Cool and confidant and steady and strong.  
Thanks! That's how I see her too! She's still young, and there are people there that have known her when she was just a kid, so it's normal for her to be occasionally nervous and stuff, but yeah, cool, confident, steady and strong. That's how I see Jack when she comes into her own.

**Bliss:** I felt like I was really in the story  
That's the highest praise I can get. I love when people get taken away and end up there on T9 with me, standing in the grass, feeling that cool wind and the small electrical surge. That just makes my day!

Thanks so much to all that are reading, enjoying and favoriting!


	3. Chapter 3

_Reviews on feedback and thank you's for chapter 2 are at the bottom of this chapter!_

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**Jack 3**

The horsemen broke off to the left, riding hard for the line of trees. The wind howled as the glider whipped over the grass and it took an act of will for her not to pull the nose of the lightweight airship in their direction.

As the riders reached the forest wall, she watched as three of them broke off, pulling their mounts up sharply and circling. Shazza, Theo and Duncan. Jack couldn't make them out clearly given the distance but she knew that's who they were. There was no stopping, no circling back; she was in the wind and there was no way to get the fully assembled glider through the forest now in any case. Resting a hip heavily into the strut between the wings, she raised her arm in a salute, continuing to watch as the horses turned quickly, flicked their tails, and disappeared into the dark.

Facing forward once more, she inhaled and for a single all too brief moment she was alone with the wind screaming in her ears as the glider ate up the distance. A light tap on her hip. Riddick pointing over her shoulder to a spot farther up ahead where the grassland sea was broken by the worn path that ran alongside the river. He didn't waste his time in words that would be lost and so they fell back on gestures, something that had grown familiar over the years.

The river was just ahead and she was running out of room if she was going to change her mind. If she was going to change her mind. Even as the thought entered, she knew that she wasn't going to pull up the nose of the glider, turning her off across the grass. Though she had taken the same route countless times now with the Moorglade, there was still that frisson of fear as the forgiving grass made way for icy water and smooth river stones.

Another first in a day of firsts.

They soared over the embankment. Once over the open water, Jack pulled on the mechanism that turned the wings, trying for a hard sharp left over the water. The glider slowed, dipped, and she swore under her breath as she willed the bird higher, demanding that it rise. Riddick said nothing; he could control the altitude and to a degree their speed, but there was little else he could do but wait for a cue from Jack. The bird was at the whim of the wind. Taking an elbow in the ribs from Jack, he added his strength to hers and helped pull the strap that had the glider complete her turn just before they overshot the opposite bank.

"Bloody hell!" she shouted as they finally straightened out over the middle of the stream. It wasn't the deafening speed they had achieved over the open grassland but they still moved fast enough to kill them both if the glider decided to take a nosedive into the stones below. Behind her, Riddick chuckled and she kicked him in the shin rather than turn to shoot him a glare.

"You sound like Shazza when you're pissed!" he shouted back at her choice of curses.

The glider shimmied slightly as she shot the barest of glances over her shoulder at him. Of course he was smirking at her. Facing forward once more, she centered the bird over the middle of the channel. Riddick's manner of speaking had sunk deep over the past seven years until she rarely thought about her colourful language; it was as much a part of her as Riddick himself. And yet when she was truly surprised by something, it was Shazza that she took after. She would have grinned in other circumstances.

"Can't take a turn that fast again," she shouted, thinking about the turn into the river's path.

"Why not."

It wasn't about him wanting to know. It was about her knowing. Training had been as much about sharpening her mind as it was about honing her body.

"Not enough space to turn."

"Seen you take a sharper turn over grass before. She handled it fine," he shot back.

That was true; she could turn the glider on a dime but that was over grass and not running full out. Even still, the glider _had_ handled it fine, pulling sharply into the riverway just before they ran up on the opposite bank. Jack would still have liked more room to turn but a small reduction in speed could do the trick. Pull on the wing a fraction sooner, lean back a little harder. Enter the turn right over the embankment instead of halfway over the river. Having someone to help. The gliders had been built for one but recent events proved out that they worked just fine with two.

_'Probably better. I could've done that shit myself but it wouldn't have been that fast,'_ she thought, already adding the experience to everything she had gained so far. The Moorglade didn't look like it could do half the stuff it could but it too was deceptively well built, its green wood supple, strong and hard as steel. Indeed she had handled it just fine.

"Think she'd open up over the water the same way she did over grass?" she dared, not looking back.

"Do it."

Casual and cool, Riddick let nothing in his tone betray any uneasiness he might have felt. Taking from another of Riddick's oft repeated teachings, Jack chose to look deeper. Breath was cool and even, his chest rising evenly, but he had tensed slightly, making the leather strap he held creak, just enough to give him away.

Up ahead, the river widened as it flowed toward the sea. It moved faster, whiter in the shallower water. Dotted with small islands, some so small that autumn floods completely covered them, the way wasn't clear, wasn't easy. If anything, in the smaller, less familiar craft, it was likely to be even more dangerous. All of this Jack processed as she had Riddick ease up on the small amount of restraint they held over the glider's speed.

The wings snapped on either side as the wind caught them and with Riddick she worked to keep the glider from rising too much. Or falling toward the water. They held true, picking up speed in the wider channel. Closer to the water, even the smallest of the islands loomed large, seeming to rush up to greet them. A wide graceful swoop along the right hand side. Familiar with the river, she guided them easily around a cluster of three small islands and then pulled them back into the middle of the stream once they were clear.

"Took that wide, didn't you?"

It was true; she had taken a wider turn around the moss-ridden humps of stone than she would have taken. In the Moorglade, she would have gotten close enough to touch a wing, if she willed it. She was being careful after the initial turn into the riverway and it pissed her off.

_'Fine.'_

Even though she knew that he was pushing her, she elbowed Riddick and had him adjust the flaps on the wings, dropping the glider closer to the churning white water. Close enough that the spray off the rocks spit across her shins and made her gut knot tightly. Fear clashed with excitement and excitement won out.

The forest towered on one side and the grassland rose up on the other. Straight down the middle, the roar of the river took up everything else. Bracing her foot, Jack pulled and felt her stomach lurch as the glider screamed in a hard right turn. _'Close enough to touch,'_ she thought. If she had a free hand she could reach out and yank up a mossy clod from the stone they swept past. She would have to settle for thinking it.

Larger and larger, the islands blotted out the sky and darkened the water in their shade as the glider swung around them, seeming to dance over the water like a dragonfly. The grace was hard-earned and she and Riddick communicated in a series of guttural shouts, slaps and kicks. After a fashion, they fell into a rhythm: slow slightly before the turn, raise the flaps, driving the nose downward and pulling the wing in the direction they wanted to go. The force would raise the nose again, even as they swung around the stone outcroppings. Then they would have to straighten out again once free. Ten islands, twelve, fifteen. They got better, faster. Closer.

Being able to turn on a dime didn't mean anything as the wall of mist swallowed them. The air itself felt wet and cold and colour drained from everything but the very tops of the trees as the shroud closed up around them. The roar of the river increased tenfold, seeming to come from everywhere at once, and she had to make a conscious effort not to hold her breath, knowing what was coming. Even Riddick wasn't immune; the falls were something he hated. Not enough to tell her to pull off the water and onto the opposite bank, but enough.

Scary in the Moorglade, the leap into nothingness was terrifying in the fragile structure of the glider as the ground dropped away suddenly beneath them. Rocks below and swirling torrents of water, enough to rip them to pieces if they should fall. Coasting in the white nothingness, the glider drifted downward. Not in a broken jumble of green wood and sailcloth but in a slow gentle arc toward the water. Water that was hard to see, given the screen of mist that obscured almost everything. Operating on instinct, she elbowed Riddick and had him bring up the nose. A few feet or mere inches, there was no way to know. _'Anything you can walk away from.'_

She wanted to whoop but wasn't sure what her voice would do. Riddick said nothing either and she wondered if it was the same for him. If it was ever the same for him. As she had gotten older, hero worship had transformed into deep respect, into friendship. It made her easier to look at him and see that he could fear, that he could worry, that he could fail. Then again, fearing the falls was a good fear.

As quickly as it had come upon them, the mist was torn away in tatters like a living thing and the river opened up in front of them. Wider, calmer, the water was a deep serene blue, so still that it cast reflections of islands back down onto the surface. The forest and grassland fell farther back on either side as they stayed true, right down the middle of an ever expanding delta on its way to the sea. Below her feet, a darker shape moved languorously back and forth across the glider's shadow. She didn't want to think too hard on what it could be but first instinct told her it was a predator. It excited her but not enough to linger and she pulled the wing gently towards the left and the disappearing forest wall. Gently. In case the glider hit the water and they discovered just what sort of beast made its home at the mouth of the river.

Horses dotted the end of the causeway that led up to the broken ruins of Sunhillow, the ancestral keep of the long-dead ruler of Trieste 9, Olias. They wandered amidst the broken stones, pulling up tufts of hardy sea grass. A few had nosed out onto the causeway itself and Jack kept an eye on them as they startled at the sight of the closing glider, relieved that they were smart enough to get out of the way. A slight correction and they flew a straight path over the stones, keeping well clear of the crenellated defensive walls on either side.

Slower, slower. Lower. A hard line appeared between her eyes and her mouth pulled into a thin white line as the ground came up to meet them. The stones were smoother but less forgiving than grass and she sucked in a breath as the landing gear touched down. An arm went around her waist and Riddick was pulling her back against his chest. She felt his heart pound and stayed completely still, feeling his breath against the side of her face. She wouldn't close her eyes but watched the line of the horizon shake as the dying wind pulled the wings this way and that before it let them go. She wondered for the second time if he had been afraid.

Just as suddenly, the arm around her waist eased slightly as the glider settled, slowing as it neared the last set of notched stones that defended the causeway. As they rolled to a near-stop and the Moorglade came into sight, anchored alongside the keep, he relaxed even more, pulled back and patting her hard on the arm. And just like that they were on the ground once more. She missed it already.

The wings fluttered gently in the dying breeze as she jumped down, keeping a tight hold on the wing. On the other side, Riddick's boots hit the ground with barely a sound and they maneuvered the glider closer to the edge before they tied her to one of the rings that dotted the seaward length of the defensive wall.

"Prefer that to the horses?" In front of the glider, they fell in beside each other, Jack's mannish stride easily keeping pace with him.

At first he just nodded and Jack didn't think that he would answer. And then he did. "It felt good to be back in the air again."

That the Moorglade flew and that they had both regularly flown in her didn't bear mentioning as Jack knew it wasn't the same thing. As powerful, as exhilarating, as the Moorglade was, it was like a freighter, while the gliders were more like agile fighters and couldn't possibly compare.

"Hmm." It had been a long time but she remembered how it had felt to take Theo's ship, the Odyssey, through the stellar clouds once they had come out of the wormhole. Twelve had been forever ago but she remembered, and it had felt good. "You could always take one," she offered.

A quick grin pulled the corner of his mouth into wrinkles as he looked over at her and then they were at the doors of the keep, both pushing on the hammered iron disc in its centre and stepping into the large open hall. From bright sunshine they stepped into a dim green room shot with shafts of dappled light from the few windows they had left open to the elements. The keep was as familiar to her as the Moorglade or the cabin she shared with Jacob and she stepped forward, even though she could barely see with the change of light. Beside her, Riddick pushed his goggles up onto his forehead and, keeping pace alongside her, moved into the middle of the room.

In the centre was a large, round wooden table around which stood her friends, Shazza, Theo, Duncan and Johns, as well as those of the villagers that had not ridden out into the stones to seek out the Company men. From her spot on the far end of the table, Shazza looked up at them both as they came in, the smile sudden. Without a word, those at the table shifted a step to one side or the other, making a space for the newcomers.

Standing between Riddick and Shazza, Jack pressed closer to the table to make room as the air itself seemed to thicken, charged with electricity at the subtle display of affection the two shared, just a quick touch upon meeting and that was enough. Theo thumbed through the topmost of the charts on the table, taking the weights off the corners, setting them aside and rearranging until the map that he wanted, an old chart created long ago by Old Thomas, was on the top of the pile. With the corners weighted down once more, Jack got a good look at what they had been discussing before she and Riddick had arrived.

"The mountainous areas aren't well mapped out, even in the older texts," Theo stated as he pointed along a barren section of the map. "These maps were made to plot out the paths of the ley lines for the Moorglade and she'd never be able to fly within those canyons so they're not mapped."

"Which is probably why they're in there," Duncan added as he limped alongside the table, moving around Johns and another villager in order to get a better view.

Jack looked up from the map as Riddick touched her shoulder, seeming to slide past her as he moved around the table to stand beside Duncan. Rather than follow him, she filled the place where he had stood and rested heavily against the table, her knuckles making dents in the stacks of paper.

No matter how many people were in the room, if Riddick was there, if Duncan was there, they seemed to take up all the space. She liked to watch them. Villagers shifted aside without so much as a sound and, not for the first time, Jack took in the subtle display of power across from her. Training with Riddick had seemed as natural as breathing. Training with Duncan and Riddick together had been something else altogether. Not only for what she had learned from them both but from what the two men together had taught her about others. Other men especially. Nobody had ever stated in so many words that her two mentors were in charge but it was clear, each and every time.

As she glanced around the table, she realized that it didn't stop at the reaction to Riddick and Duncan. The remaining villagers clustered together on one end of the table, watching. Theo had a clear spot around him as he moved the maps around. Captain of the Moorglade, he had his own gravity. Beside her, Shazza nudged her with a hip and, casting a look to the side, Jack wasn't terribly surprised to find Shazza eyeing the dynamics around the table in much the same way. _'No wonder Riddick says I'm just like her,'_ she thought.

Back to the map, she watched as markers, in the form of smooth stones, appeared on the map as men pointed out the villages that were close to the mountainous area. "We could start out into the villages after we're done here; see if we can start rounding up the militia," one of the men said, earning nods and murmurs of agreement from those on either side.

Leaning further into the table, Riddick made a low hum-growl in his chest as he took in the scattering of stones. "Might be good not to make a show of going in, at least not there." A calloused fingertip whispered against the parchment as Riddick swept a line alongside the mountainous region, cutting a line between where the Company hid out and the villages the men had pointed out. "Not everybody that's gonna help out the Company is going to live in there," he tapped the stony region. "A lot of them will live nearby in these villages. People are going to know them there."

"So we go in to spy on them," one of the men said almost indignantly, drawing a cold look from both Riddick and Duncan.

"Yes," Duncan said coldly. "If you go in, you're going in to find out who we have to watch out for. Anything we learn about the people helping the Company will help Jacob and the others."

"Anything you give away about what we're looking for could get Jacob and the others killed," Riddick finished.

Quickly, Jack sucked in a breath but didn't dwell on it. While Jacob hadn't the benefit of training under Riddick and Duncan, he had been a member of the militia since the age of 13 and she knew he was far from weak.

"So we go in to spy on them," another of the men said. He was a large, quiet man, his face scarred from the battle with the Company seven years before. "We can spy. We say we're going in for supplies." The same men that had nodded before, nodded again.

"Good." Duncan stood a little straighter, pleased that having the villagers go along wouldn't be a fight. Taking in the map in its entirety, he continued. "We're still going to need to raise the alarm closer in, however."

"Smaller groups can," Jack said as she pinched the bridge of her nose, trying to think of the right word, "ride dispatch. Take horses through the forest to the militia encampments there. For the further outposts, you'll have to take the Moorglade," she looked across the table at Riddick, catching Theo as well.

At the order, some of the other men shot her a hard look but said nothing. Most of the women they knew wouldn't have had an interest in warfare, or what was done in its preparation. Even after all this time, it was easy to sometimes forget that Jack was different. The men looked over to Riddick, to Duncan, but neither answered or spoke against her. Riddick glanced up quickly from the table surface and Jack felt the weight in that look.

Facing the two men to the left of her, Jack tapped the map before tracing a path between what passed for checkpoints in the forest. "You will take small teams of horsemen through here, passing on the information only to people that you trust," she said forcefully. "We have to control the number of people that know what we're doing. Don't draw attention."

"We can do that well enough," the quiet man said before any of his men could answer.

The silence felt longer than it was and Jack tapped the map again. "It's a hell of a lot of ground to cover," she stated as she measured out the expanse of grassland that ran along the rocky terrain where the Company men had gone to ground. "It's all open here. Any horsemen in the area are going to be seen a long way off." That they would be watched went without saying.

"With just a couple of gliders," she continued, "we could cover this whole area and it wouldn't look any different than any of the other trial runs we've been doing up until now."

"That's good," Shazza turned to her and agreed as she traced out the triangle of land between the forest, the sea and the rocky expanse. "If you and I go, it has the added benefit that the raiders that are helping the Company men are likely to overlook us." Shazza didn't look at the village men but Jack caught the sparkle in her eye as she said it.

"Last fucking thing they'd expect," Jack said with a grin. "Two gliders then." Jack straightened and looked across the table. "You can take the second one but I want someone else with us. Duncan, I want you with us on this. You know the Company, so you'll know what to look for."

On matters of the Company, Duncan was one of the best assets they had; he had _been_ Company for years, but it wasn't the sole reason for the choice. With Duncan, she wouldn't have to deal with the villager's chauvinism, wasting time they didn't have. From the penetrating look that Duncan gave her, it was clear that he knew exactly why she had chosen him. "Agreed," Duncan said, giving her a shrewd look as he tapped the table. "If we're going to head out, I've got some things I'd like to wrap up first before we do."

"We'll need supplies, in case we're out for more than a few days, so," Jack looked up at the shafts of light coming through the broken windows, gauging how much daylight they had left. "An hour?"

Mutters in agreement went around the table and then the villagers faded back from the table, disappearing through the door and out onto the causeway. On horseback, they would cut through the forest to their homes and say their own goodbyes.

It left her, Shazza, Duncan, Riddick and Theo standing around the table.

"You handled that well," Shazza said after the villagers were gone, closing the heavy wooden door behind them.

Looking across at Riddick and Duncan, Jack's lips thinned as she thought over what had just happened. "Let's not get too excited just yet. It's one thing for them to listen right here," she said as she thumped on the table for emphasis. "But will it count when it matters."

"It'll count," Riddick said simply, his voice dropping to a deep growl as he held her gaze across the stack of charts. "You'll make it count."

The ever-present threat, just below the surface. It made her think of the predator out in the mouth of the river that had followed their glider for a short while. If it came to force, Jack knew all about force. If it came to killing, Jack could do that too. The man across from her had trained her well, but like the silent, unseen predator, it was there in her. If she had to make it count, she'd make it count.

But that wasn't the same as leading. By force of will, Riddick could lead. By force of charisma, he could make you follow him anywhere and Jack knew that from personal experience. Even now, she would follow him into hell itself without a second thought. But it wasn't the same as leading, and for that, she glanced at Duncan. Riddick had taught her to fight, to kill, to survive, but it would be Duncan that would teach her to lead.

"I can do that," she whispered, her voice a quieter echo of Riddick's dangerous growl. She felt the sharp knife beneath and grew cold. _'I can do that,'_ her thoughts echoed. Of all of them around the table, perhaps only Riddick knew what she was truly capable of.

Feet shuffled in the silence and Jack turned to take in Shazza, grinning quickly at the hard expression on the other woman's face. If anyone gave her any grief, Jack knew that she could rely on Shazza to be there to back her up.

"I have to prepare," Theo said as he thumbed through the charts and deftly rolled up a couple, tucking them under his arm. "Riddick?"

"I'll catch up with you," Riddick said, eyeing Shazza across the table.

It left her alone in the room with Duncan. "Probably just as well we only said an hour," he deadpanned.

Laughter bubbled up from her and she came around to his side of the table. Keeping her pace slow and measured, she walked beside him as they left the main hall and went back out into the bright light on the causeway. "It's probably just as well she'll be on a glider and not on horseback out there."

Duncan clapped her on the back, his laugh dying out as he grew serious. "About that. We might want to take horses anyway."

Not bothering to waste time in asking Duncan why, she waited, knowing that he would explain fully in his own time. Even then, her mind had already switched gears; thinking about how many horses they would need and what kind of supplies they should bring.

"We don't know how long we might be out there, or what we might be facing in terms of numbers. The horses can pack in whatever supplies we might need."

"Tea's nice," she added. During her hunting trips with Riddick, they would range widely, carrying only what they wore on the night the hunt began. They lived rough. Slept outside and taking from the land what they needed to survive. They could do it but that didn't mean that they didn't miss the small comforts and she knew that after they returned from each trip, that Riddick made tea and sat out on the flat roof of Sunhillow's ruins, eyes closed, the warm earthenware cup between his hands. Before bathing, before eating or sleeping, before anything else. She could live without comfort of she had to, but it was good to have it. Tea was nice.

"There's that," he agreed, "also, the gliders are great for open ground, but if we have to change plans and go back into the forest for some reason -"

"-Or the rocks," she continued for him, instantly seeing where he was going with his argument. "We're covered no matter where those fuckers show up."

Another shrewd look from Duncan as he hummed in agreement with her. "The gliders can be disassembled and we can take them through the forest that way?" he questioned, getting a nod in return.

Up ahead at the end of the causeway, they looked at the villager's horses, still pulling up tufts of grass. The men were standing in a loose knot, talking amongst themselves; they would leave soon. "We should start out with the other villagers."

The import of what he offered dropped like a bomb and Jack knew that he had done it on purpose. _'Sneaky fucker's determined to put me in charge,'_ she thought, not without a glimmer of pride that he had that kind of faith in her. "Yeah, we could."

"If you run into any problems, Hammersmith will stand with you."

"Hammersmith. Mark, right?" she asked. He was the quiet man that had come forward during the briefing; she didn't know him that well.

"His family was cut down when Bishop went through his village."

Jack noticed that Duncan separated himself from that action but didn't say anything about it. Nothing was ever as simple, as black and white, as it sounded and she knew better than to judge so quickly. If Hammersmith could see past Duncan's involvement with the Company, with the very raid that killed his family, it only raised the militiaman in her eyes.

"He's got no love for the Company," he continued.

At that, she snorted. "No shit. It's good; we'll need that if we're to get the rest to work with us."

"With you."

Opening her mouth and closing it as quickly when she had nothing to say to that. "We're set then." Watching the shadows lengthen along the ground, she took a guess at how much time had passed. "Your hour's almost up. You better go _'get ready'_ while you've still got time."

Duncan snorted at her and then she was off, vaulting over the side of the causeway to the grass a short distance below, making for the small cabin that she shared with Jacob, to prepare for their journey.

© copyright xxxevilgrinxxx April 2010

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**Bliss**: Riddick is like the ultimate mom! He knows EVERYTHING that you're doing! Jack is cocky, but there are limits, even for her :D

**Saismaat**: I love getting your reviews; you always see stuff in there that I love, or that I've missed - which I also love :)

I tinkered with that first sentence a bit. For me it was more about unsettled, spooked horses, and the wrongness of the situation.

_"Very nice! This thing as an intrusion."_

--Thanks, I wanted a definite feel for what belonged and what didn't, and wanted the drop ship to be as unnatural and foreign as possible

_"Nice. Back to him hovering over Fry in the skiff, not quite touching . . ."_

--it's interesting, I see him doing that a lot. In TCoR, I found he was much more action oriented, all heroey and charging in, but in Pitch Black, there's a certain cautious slyness. There's only a few points where he actually fights in PB but mostly, he's there, watching and testing. I just watched "the Escapist" last night and there's a character that does this to frightening effect. You never see him actually touch, but there's whole air of threat and...intimacy? It's wrong and confusing and terribly human.

_"snerk. Four plus 19 is 23 – 22 plus one, starting over. Emperor and The_  
_Sun. Power and rebirth. It can mean a whole lot."_

--I swear I channel this stuff :) Power and rebirth would be a huge character in this story...but rebirth into what?

.

.

_"Jack's moving to being in charge? Hm."_

--between you and I, yes, definitely. Jack developed some leadership qualities in Rider, where she took control of the Moorglade, and she's been groomed for it by Theo, Riddick, Duncan and Shazza. The notion of Riddick as a female character in PB has stuck with me ever since I found he was supposed to be a she. It filled in so many blanks for me. I always 'got' Riddick, but that was a defining moment for me.

_"Heh. Serenity moment. "You mean to say . . . sex?""_

--exactly :) I was writing and it didn't want to come out any other way, so I left it. There isn't any Firefly in here but I almost think that any 'frontier/space/fantasy/sci-fi" story that doesn't have Firefly in the back of their head somewhere? Strange. So, while there's not enough to disclaimer it, there's always something, isn't there?

_"Nice back and forth there!"_

--Jack and Riddick here are my two favorite characters to write

thanks for reading and enjoying, it's so much fun going back to this story, and thank you to those that have favorited and are following!


	4. Chapter 4

Thanks for this chapter go out to Ayabie who helped kick my butt up in the air. It was stuck but good and really needed it! Feedback on reviews and thank yous are below this chapter. I apologize for having taken so long to get this out to you. Lots of excuses of course and as valid as they are, it's still six shades of suck and I apologize. I'll not do so again...I hope...if I do, feel free to kick my butt :)

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**Jack 4**

_Earth: Company Headquarters_

Rubber-soled shoes padded softly outside his office door. Nothing moved on the top floor that he didn't know about. In part this was due to the security measures that his predecessor Bishop had left in place but he was not content to leave it at that.

He wasn't so arrogant that he openly thought he could improve on Bishop's existing security. After all, Bishop had taken years to set up his surveillance network, his Byzantine system of informants, devices and files.

With his death seven years ago, Bishop had left a power vacuum and there had been a hard-fought battle among the top predators in the Company's elite Mercenary Guild department for the coveted office. Of the list of people that had been considered for the position, Alistair Thorne, as one of Bishop's assistants at the time, hadn't been anywhere near the top of the list. Agents had come out of the woodwork for the directorate. Agents with far more experience, more pull. Far more qualified. But he had fought. And won.

Taking a page from Bishop's playbook, he had been willing to play dirty. Very dirty. It was that cutthroat approach before he had even secured the position that not only assured his ascension but differentiated him from Bishop himself. Once his place was secured, Thorne had used and expanded on those systems. Quiet. Unrelenting.

On his computer console he watched as his secretary stood outside the office door. A young woman named Marjorie. In her arms she shuffled a stainless steel case awkwardly as she adjusted her skirt, tucking a folded destination slip between her elbow and the case.

She knocked to announce her presence. At his desk Thorne smirked, his thin lips pulled into an unflattering pale gash, as she looked around the barren hallway, growing ill at ease with the continued wait. Another moment he gave her, until she raised her hand to knock again, and he relented, keying the intercom, "Come in".

Outside, Marjorie exhaled and depressed the door handle, letting the door swing in silently across the carpeted floor, stepping into the cool office. In complete silence, he let her cross the room, not looking up from the meaningless papers he had on his desk. The casual cruelties of his predecessor didn't come naturally to him but it wasn't through a lack of application. Bishop's methods were simple and ensured that those beneath him were fearful and so easier to control. It was easier when, due to access to those systems of security, he knew exactly what his staff thought of him, how they spoke about him when they believed he couldn't hear them.

From surveillance he had learned that the young woman in front of him found him to be attractive, although cruel, smug and, in her own words, a bit of a bastard. He didn't care; it only helped in keeping them at a distance, fuelling his anger and, in a circular fashion, allowing him to continue Bishop's practice in casual viciousness.

It would have been easy to remove these problems when his position was assured and he knew that Bishop was notorious for churning through female office staff. At getting rid of anyone that vexed him. Thorne had admired many things about the other man but that hadn't been one of them; he thought it showed weakness, to say nothing of displaying the very surveillance at work that brought the comments to light. Rather than resort to petty displays that showed his hand, Thorne chose to bide his time and listen.

When Marjorie carefully placed the stainless steel case on the edge of the desk, careful not to have it click too solidly against the expanse of marble, he glanced up, regarding her as barely an afterthought.

"Coffee," he said, and turned back to the papers as though she had never been there at all.

"Yes, sir," she said, turning on a heel and recrossing the room, stopping at the door. "Anything else, sir?"

Not looking up, he answered, "Nothing else, just coffee."

When she was gone, Thorne set aside the papers hadn't been doing much of anything with, already bored with the charade, and returning to his computer console. Even in the most secure office in the building, Thorne ran through several redundant layers of identification procedures to ensure his identity. The last step involved a retinal scanner and he remained stock still as a piercingly bright light crawled slowly across the surface of his eye. It itched and he flexed his toes, pressing them against the leather uppers of his shoes to the point of pain in order to take his mind off the procedure. Once over, he screwed his eyes shut, seeing bright spots for a few seconds before his vision cleared. The scanning device retracted back into its housing, the hazel iris on the screen flickering with flares of light as his identity was confirmed.

The screen went black briefly and then a single file folder appeared. It looked no different than any of the thousands he had to deal with on a regular basis. The difference being that it was something he was not supposed to have. In truth he believed that if it came out that the information was in his possession he would disappear shortly after. He didn't want to think too much about what would happen after that. Under Bishop, he had filled out the paperwork that had sent Company employees to max security prison sites, never to be seen again, for much less.

Seven years ago, he had manned a communication console in a secure room down the hall from where he sat now when a call had come in from the technical officer of a downed freighter on the farthest reaches of the Company's empire.

It had been late and everyone else was gone. Alone, he had leaned in close as the voice came through, grainy and cut with rhythmic static, hard to hear despite the best communication equipment that money could buy. There hadn't been much time and the caller had sounded desperate. A decision had to be made quick, had to be made right then and there, and he had made that call, sending a troop transport to Trieste 9.

If Bishop had lived he would have backed Thorne's play without question. After all, he had done exactly what had been demanded: put the full weight of the Company behind whatever action his superior took. It had been done that way for years.

But Bishop hadn't survived. Hadn't survived and in fact had failed catastrophically. Agents were willing to fight for his seat but the man's failure was something they wanted no part of. That he, Bishop's assistant at the time, had ended up with the prize? The stink of failure lingered but no one dared make the accusation publicly and so it festered just below the surface. To do so would stain anyone involved, all the way up to the head of the Company. It would blight Bishop's memory and from there, everything he had ever touched and no one wanted that history to be public, that open for dissection.

For the Company to protect itself, Bishop's failure had become his failure. And so became his obsession, an obsession he wasn't supposed to acknowledge. So he had bide his time, collecting everything that could be known about the Company's failure on Trieste 9. It wasn't only the planet but Bishop's failure to take it that had caught him in its gravity.

Even the failure was a failure. Bishop had lost but beyond that, he hadn't managed to do what any other Company executive would have done. He hadn't been around to erase the fact that he had failed.

Such losses were for all intents and purposes quite rare. Hundreds of settlements had fallen to the ever-expanding Company. For the most part there had been little to no resistance at all. In the past, worlds that had stood against the Company had been wiped clean and yet Trieste 9 remained, defiant. And further, it hadn't remained solely a local matter. If it had? If it had, Thorne wouldn't be keying in the code for the package his secretary had brought. A long string of numbers and then there was a pause while he waited for another scan which he hated but endured, and finally the case clicked open.

There wasn't much inside. A data disc with the latest secure file from a personally dispatched deep space surveillance fleet, heavily secured in an inner case that only he had the code for. Getting the information in a hard copy meant that it was already out of date, he knew, if only by a matter of days, as flash communication was transferred ship to ship by those he knew were in his pocket. Receiving communication through the Company's communication centre would mean opening the whole operation up to any Company eyes that cared to look and he wasn't ready to do that just yet. It was a trade off he was willing to risk in order to present his superiors with a fait accompli. To stand at the head of the table and present the whole package in a stunning briefing that would, in one fell swoop, clear his name and Bishop's both and secure his future in a way that would be irrefutable.

It was about more than just Trieste 9. Much more.

Just the thought alone had him close his eyes, feeling his low belly tense in a near-sexual rush. Exhaling, he opened his eyes and made a quick check of the surveillance outside in the hallway, certain that his own office, swept daily for devices, was secure. Only then did he remove the disc from its secure case and drop it into the reader, the whisper click the only sound in the room.

At the generic prompt that appeared, he tapped in the final simple code: "419".

Static crackled once and then cut cleanly to the hard-lined face of an anonymous soldier wearing the black uniform of a Company intelligence officer. It bore no insignia, no name, and Thorne knew that if he asked, none would be forthcoming. The intelligence officer would deflect or refuse to answer. Or simply lie, which was more likely. In any case, the name wasn't important. Only the information mattered.

The nameless face crisply recited a series of numbers broken into chunks that Thorne entered into a star map as the officer spoke, bringing up a section of space close to the Trieste system, where the ship, known between them only by the appellation "419", hung silent in hyperspace.

To the side of the officer, a series of captured images from the "419"'s surveillance array tiled downward neatly and Thorne clicked on several of them as the officer continued to speak. The Trieste system was a vast expanse of planets strung along the outward edge of the volatile P59 Nebula. Existing within the cloud's influence, the space between planets was treacherous as were several of the planets themselves. The planets that "419" had examined thus far were so unstable that no responsible commander would send his men down to the surface. Gaseous giants, hunks of frozen ice and other worlds that could put a description to hell made up many of them. About Trieste 9 itself, what little information Thorne had managed to extract from the signals sent before Bishop's freighter went down had kept him from repeating his predecessor's mistake: He didn't send another ship into the orbit, high or otherwise, of Trieste 9.

What drove the electromagnetic pulse was something of a mystery in itself. Unable to make detailed scans of the planet from space because of the interference, there was no way to discover what power the planet drew on or how to counteract. Landing a science team without being able to ensure their safety meant that he couldn't ascertain from the planet's surface what powered it either. In any case, this was an area for the scientific division long afterwards; it didn't much concern him save for the fact that it prevented an all out open invasion.

What did matter to him was that the pulse was precisely timed in twenty-four minute cycles. The electromagnetic pulse never dissipated entirely but there was the briefest of windows where it was theoretically possible to get a signal out. During his last communication he had ordered the "419" to make a quick and quiet pass of Trieste 9, staying out of the world's gravity well, and send down a drop ship with a crew of men with equipment that would serve as a link to the ship in hyperspace.

The anonymous officer looked down at a pad he had in his hands and drily ran off another series of coordinates which Thorne tapped into his keyboard, bringing up the location in space where the "419" had stopped long enough to drop its cargo. Another series of surveillance captures, grainy and heavily jagged with interference, replaced the previous set on the right side of the intelligence officer. Leaning forward and squinting, Thorne picked out a single bright outline, realizing that it was the horizon of Trieste 9, backlit by a star, before the image jagged and corroded as he scrolled through the series.

"The soldiers waited at the drop site until a window opened and reported on their immediate surroundings. We were unable to lock on while they were transmitting due to jamming so we have no way to know where they've gone beyond the initial drop point. There has been no contact with the team since the drop."

Inhaling sharply through his nose, Thorne bit back his questions, knowing that the recording couldn't answer him, instead scribbling shorthand notes onto a small pad of flash paper that he kept for just this purpose.

_'Duncan Warfield?'_

One of the foremost questions in his mind was the location of Bishop's right hand man, Duncan Warfield. The merc-hunter's fate was unknown, as were a great many other things that Thorne would need to know if he were to be successful. There had been no contact with Warfield since Bishop's freighter had entered the Trieste system. He could very well be as dead as Bishop but, having met Warfield, Thorne doubted it and he hoped that the seven specialists he had dispatched would be able to contact the merc.

The question itself bothered him, the uncertainty of not knowing where Warfield was or even if he was alive. For all Thorne knew, Warfield could have been part of the contingent of Company soldiers that he knew had managed to be taken from the planet surface and simply not reported in but it had him wonder nonetheless and he worried over it like a missing tooth.

It was of course entirely possible that the merc-killer had no way of sending a signal out from the surface. That the radio equipment that had called in the strike had been destroyed beyond repair and that a signal was as impossible for him as it was for the special operations team to send out. Having read the man's file, Thorne knew that it was a possibility that he had gone to ground once Bishop was dead and that the specialists would find him, living rough and waiting for rescue. It was even possible that he had managed to escape with the very few Company soldiers that had been airlifted off-world when a military freighter went AWOL and rescued the remainder of their unit, against orders that demanded they leave. The last was possible but unlikely as Thorne knew that he would find a way to make contact.

All of these questions flitted through his mind even as the nameless officer recited the credentials of those that had been dropped on Trieste 9. Impressive records with various special operations teams; he had no doubt that they would be successful. There was no way they could be anything else. It was the not knowing, the not being one hundred percent sure, that troubled him. Having access to a man like Warfield, who had not only served beside Bishop for years, but who had been planet-side during the invasion and witnessed what happened, then and since, was invaluable. The intelligence alone made the expense worth it but the idea of bringing back Warfield and having a man of his calibre stand beside him as he briefed the board?

Frustrated with his inability to influence events on the ground, he shook his head and pushed his chair back away from the desk, getting to his feet so quickly that he nearly toppled the chair. _'This is why Bishop stayed out in the field,'_ he thought. In all likelihood, at his age Bishop should have remained in the office and delegated, he should have retired, but at this moment, Thorne understood completely why his predecessor had not. In an already highly secretive organization, the additional layers in his division only served to separate him further from the action. That he couldn't tell anyone about it didn't help.

"We continue to reconnoitre the Trieste system with an eye toward scooping any and all signals in or out of T9 ," the officer continued. "And we will continue to forward any and all intelligence we receive through established dark channels."

At the floor length window that ran the length of the room behind his desk, Thorne stopped his anxious pacing and clasped his hands behind his back, watching a paler, washed out version of the officer reciting his notes in the window's reflection.

Onscreen, the images disappeared and the dimensions shifted, making the officer seem to grow in size as he looked at his notes and back into the screen. Just the thought of a pause and Thorne gazed intently at the reflection of the screen in the window, feeling his belly tighten once more.

"Lastly, on our pass to deliver the operatives, our sensors picked up a broken signal hidden in a distortion field within the nebula itself. Unable to lock onto the signal or determine a location with any accuracy, we dropped the payload and circled back to do a grid by grid search."

At the window, Thorne turned towards the console as the officer brought up another display screen. Not an image this time, just a garbled sound that could mean almost anything. Or nothing. Without full awareness of his actions, Thorne had crossed back to his desk, pulling his chair clear out of the way and leaning in to replay the recording. Eyes closed, he drew on the many years that he had sat in a darkened room down the hall and listened to calls from the Company's freighters. The patterns of human speech were absent but he hadn't expected that in any case, but it was habit to rule it out. It wasn't a simple radio signal.

Reaching out, he rewound the section again, adjusting the volume as much as he dared. The currents and eddies of the nebula wreaked havoc on the signal, distorting and looping the small fragment in on itself. If he were to run it through the Company's signal intelligence division, there was a chance that enough of the signal could be deciphered to state what it was, or wasn't, within the bounds of known science. But Thorne didn't need it because, as distorted as the sound was, he was fairly certain that he knew what made it. Returning the volume to normal, he allowed the recording to continue, waiting for a confirmation.

"Our technicians have attempted to decipher the signal but have failed to clarify it's origin with any certainty. We have, as yet, been unable to secure a location but we do believe that it is a destroyer class military freighter. Unaccounted for."

With that, the anonymous officer set his papers down and reached out to shut off the connection from his side. For several moments after, Thorne remained stock still at his console. Not because he was expecting more but because the import of the agent's last words made it hard to trust that his legs wouldn't give out if he tried to stand or walk.

Inhaling sharply, he let his lungs fill near painfully with air as he stood to his full height, closing his eyes and setting his thoughts in order. It was no sure thing. From the distorted snippet the "419" had captured, the freighter could be as close as a thousand kilometres or as far as thousands of light years, there was no way to tell, given the distortions from the nebula, but it didn't matter. The unaccounted for freighter had become something of a ghost story amongst the Company's military contingent, with quiet whispers of sightings and actions taken.

No one from the Company had authorized a retrieval of the downed soldiers on Trieste 9. No one was supposed to survive to talk about it as failure was not an option. Failures weren't a matter for a commission in the Company; they were disavowed, eradicated. That soldiers were left for dead meant little against the image of a military machine that was never to be beaten. When the freighter had returned to T9 to retrieve a handful of wounded soldiers, they had not only disobeyed a direct order to pull back and let the soldiers be wiped out rather than have the defeat known. They had opened the door for that defeat to become public knowledge.

From the amount of time that Thorne had spent listening in to the conversations of officers, soldiers and intelligence operatives, both before he took Bishop's position and afterwards, he was well aware that military men – despite all Company laws to the contrary – put their units above the Company. But it was one thing to see it on a small scale, such as the petty favouritism bestowed on those with whom you served, and another to break free from the Company in the name of that unit. To turn against the Company entirely and start up a competing mercenary force that were little more than pirates. That someone with the decorated history of Lt. Col. Jane Adams had done so was staggering. That she continued to evade capture was intolerable.

Finding Duncan Warfield and retaking Trieste 9 had been a part of his plan to present his superiors with an end to Bishop's defeat, but it wasn't the whole of the plan. Thorne wanted to stitch the entire affair up in one neat package and present it, delivering Trieste 9 and the hunted fugitive Lt. Col. Jane Adams, preferably alive, as well as her warship, to the board.

The intelligence officer had made a point of not naming the freighter but it was unnecessary. They had found the _Decatur_.

© Copyright June 2010 xxxevilgrinxxx

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**Insane Kitty:** I do love that "fine", it's such a stubborn headed thing to say :)

**Hidden Relevance:** Thanks so much, HR!

Yep, log in if you wish, it's wordpress so it's very easy :) If it weren't for filtering out a hella amount of spam, I'd completely open up the comments and it wouldn't be an issue :)

I've never been able to 'get' Kyra. She always seemed like someone else entirely to me. I got what the writers were trying to do but it just doesn't say "Jack" to me. I picture this Jack, my Jack, as not that different from the Jack in Pitch Black. Older, stronger and more confident, but essentially the same person.

Sensual is a word that really sums up Riddick for me. He has this undercurrent of sensuality no matter who he's around, male or female. I addressed the difference about what he felt when it came to Jack in Rider. With others, Riddick always keeps a part of himself in reserve. Partly because, as you've said, he's more internal by nature, but also in part due to an insecurity in himself, where he doesn't know if others will accept him as he is. So, rather than get shunned, he keeps it to himself. With Jack though, he's never had to do that. Jack got him from moment one and he feels safe being himself around her, because she'll never judge him the way some others might judge him. Jack is safe because in his mind, she's NOT someone he can fuck with, literally or figuratively, so he can let his guard down.

It gets to one of the prime drives for me writing the whole kit and caboodle. Riddick wasn't written to be a guy. The original Riddick was a female convict that saw herself in Jack. It was when it went to movie form that Riddick went from female to male, but there's still something terribly female about the character and the way he interacts with the world around him.

I get how hard it is for 'shippers though, because in this story, despite their clear if 'familial' affection, there is no relationship beyond a deep friendship. I think it's also weird for some because, as I've been told, Riddick/Shazza is such an odd pairing that when it comes up in a fic where Jack (and in this case a mature Jack) is present, there's almost this question about whether she'll jump ship (LOL!) and it will become Riddick/Jack (it never does :D)

You have hit on something here, about Jacob being something of an afterthought. While he wasn't an actual afterthought, he doesn't have the importance to Jack that her 'family' does. Jacob tries to get her, but I don't think he'd ever be able to understand her enough to really have Jack notice him beyond the friendship they have (which is weird that they married, but I don't think Jack is the sort to take that seriously).

phew!  
Leave a long review, get a long review!  
Thanks for reading and enjoying!

**NJRD: **

(ch 1)

*runs over and tackles Nuria in a fierce squish*  
You have no idea how happy it makes me that you're here, reading!

Of course you would be the one to pick up on that subtle her side instead of her standing at his side. This whole story is about handing the reins to Jack, so yep :)

It's been really hard for Riddick to open up, taking years, but you're absolutely right: he shows it in small gestures.

That image, damn, I know. I dreamt of that image for weeks before I could get it down on paper, and it's still stuck in my brain. He's not comfortable up there but fuck me if he doesn't look GOOD up there!

(ch 2)

You've got me grinning like a fool! this has really made my morning :D

Jack's only 20 now and the men that she's being pressed to lead are like gods to her, so it's been hard for her not to defer to them, but they both want her to lead, so like so many things she's done, she's trying. She'll get better at giving orders, hahahah.

I like that you've picked up on that about the Jacob/Jack thing. I know that it's expected that when people marry, especially in ficland, they're all supposed to be all moony eyed over each other but Jack married basically because it was easier than not being married. Yep, that's distant. She still loves him, but it's not a dependent sort of love. He's a friend, but she doesn't need him, you know. And there are things about her that he could never understand, you're right.

Riddick makes a good dad, hahahha! He'll let Jack go her own way but he's watching carefully the whole while. Duncan will become really important later on :(

**Saismaat:** thanks so much for the review! The cold sucks, and real life is even worse, blech!

I think there may be a couple of moments there where it seems they're getting a lot of talk in there, given the time and space but I think it may be a matter of me not getting the distances right. I'll go back and see what I can tighten in any case. I'm starting to think that I should draw a map :)

The horses can cut through the forest, so it's faster for them; the river is open and she's able to fly over it, but it's a long way around. It was a subtle copy of the closing chapters of "Rider", where Riddick, Shazza and the others cut through the forest and onto Sunhillow while Jack took the Moorglade along the river, the long way around, and met up with them just in time to turn the battle. I wanted something to equal that initial fear she had of taking the Moorglade over the waterfall, as that is something that she repeated often with the ship, and turning the glider in such a way (a way that left her scarred after a fall - end of Rider - seemed to be just the thing).

I really like that you've caught Riddick being very much an earth-creature while Jack is something different. They can be similar in so many ways and then you have something like that. Their intimacy has always been something I've loved. They're not paired in this story obviously, but there's always that connection, where he can be something with Jack that he can't be with anyone else.

I'm glad you picked up on the manipulation too! That was something I was going for :)

I haven't seen Avatar yet, but I think that this sort of story fits so well with the style of fantasy/adventure that I can pick out moments in quite a few movies. The airship scenes in one of the Mummy movies or even in one of the Mad Max movies. Someone once mentioned the Hyperion books. The Moorglade doesn't really look or behave like any of those (think sentient fish-ship), but the feel is the same, I think. Avatar is out on disc now so I'll likely watch it at some point and then be 'oh yeah'-ing :)

snorks, wrestling with an angel - Jack's no angel, that's for sure!

I'm working on chapter 4 (had a real life crazy moment here too which had my husband at home all week...can't write a dratted thing then!) so hopefully it won't be too much longer. I hope everything settles down on your end!

_Thanks to everyone that is reading and reviewing and thanks to everyone that is reading and not reviewing :D I hope that you continue to enjoy! Drop me a line..._


	5. Chapter 5

Thank yous at the end of the chapter!

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**Jack 5**

Gold afternoon sunlight dappled through the trees, falling in bright blotches across the backs of the laden horses on the edge of the forest. The dun pack horse beneath her snorted and pawed through tough beach grass, seeking the tender shoots near the earth. Jack gave the animal a little lead but pulled him back before he could wander too far. The beast stayed where she held him but she let his let his head drop, taking the reins with him and craned his neck out further and munched. If she hadn't been watching the skyline so intently she would have smirked at its determination.

"We heading out?" one of the militiamen behind her called.

Not turning, Jack hummed low in her throat. Out on the horizon, the graceful keel of the Moorglade slid across the top of the grass, her pale green sails flung out to the side. Squinting against the brightness, she thought of how far out ahead Riddick would run and sought him there. A dark flash amid the green with the tow rope a slash of white connecting it to the ship. The Moorglade flew faster and faster across the grass and her belly tightened, knowing that if Riddick made a single misjudgement, his spine would be broken beneath the metal blade of the ship's keel.

Only when she saw Riddick swing gracefully up onto the deck did she turn back to answer the man that had called out. "Now we head out."

Pulling up the nose of her horse, she moved first past Shazza and then Duncan, who both fell in behind her, Shazza riding close on her right hand side. The trail wove its way deeper into the forest and dappled sunshine made way for the occasional ray of soft light that cut through the canopy, making pools of light in the half-dark. The air cooled and the smell of pine and the earthy duff underfoot mixed with the scent of horse.

The trail ahead was clear for as far as she could see but she closed her eyes and listened, letting the muffled sounds of hoof beats fade into the background and reaching out further. Birdsong fell around them as they moved through the trees, the birds themselves unseen. Small animals scurried out of the way of their passage, iridescent eyes peering out beneath the foliage, watching them carefully. Other than those she rode with, there was no other, no sense of danger, no tightening in her belly or pull at the nape of her neck to tell her that there was some threat to be attended to.

Only then did she turn back, taking in Shazza and Duncan. Shazza rode comfortably on the back of the pack horse, the reins loosely in one hand and a long spear held casually in the other. The powerful crossbows carried by the other militiamen were something that she had never gotten accustomed to, no matter the practice, and she had settled for a weapon she had proven able to wield with skill. The spear was constructed of the strong green wood that had been used to craft the Moorglade and the gliders. Its intricate damascene tip had come from the Moorglade's weaponry and, when they were in the ley lines, sparked with its same strange blue fire.

There was no way to know if it had been the spear that Shazza had used to bring down the Company ship but it wouldn't surprise Jack if it had been. It was something that Riddick had made for her in their first year on Trieste 9, something he had in fact given to her nearly a year to the date that he had given her the bone knife from the hammerhead planet. Like so many things between she and Shazza regarding Riddick, they didn't talk about his anniversary gifts, in case he stopped that as well.

Unlike Shazza, Duncan had taken easily to the crossbows and, in recent years, had shown to prefer its silent killing power over the rudimentary rifles that the militiamen carried. In any case, he had run out of ammunition for his military grade rifle years ago and being unarmed wasn't acceptable to him. The bow hung within reach of his right arm and she knew that he could raise, load, and fire accurately with the same fluid ease that she could raise a blade.

In dark brown clothing, the three militiamen that fell in just behind Duncan blended into the forest easily and if they were not on horseback, they could disappear into the trees as surely as she could. They were well armed, she knew, having seen them before they set out. Unlike Duncan and Shazza, their weapons were not in hand although she had no doubt that they would be ready to fight at a moments' notice.

Taking up the rear was a hard-faced Mark Hammersmith. Seeing the long bladed knife he kept in reach, Jack shared a nod with him. Duncan had said that he could be relied upon if there was trouble with the others and the fact that he had settled in behind the militiamen signaled his intention to do so. While she wasn't ready to rest easy on that score, it was still a good thing to know.

The scan of her line complete, Jack turned to the trail ahead. They were moving deeper into the forest and, free from the fierce winds off the sea, the trees grew taller, closer together. The path narrowed and the light dimmed to a perpetual twilight. Sure footed, the pack horses dropped their heads and plodded on, picking their way down the well worn centre rut in single file.

_'Don't exactly blend in,'_ she thought. It wasn't perfect, but the situation was what it was. Alone, she could disappear into the forest, slipping through the trees, off the path, and no one would ever know that she had been there, but she wasn't alone. That would be a hard thing to get used to, not being alone. For the seven years that she had hunted and trained with Riddick, they had worked so well with each other that out in the field, it became hard to tell where Riddick ended and where she began.

Being so at one with another's movements and actions, she didn't have to think much about how to work with anyone other than Riddick and she believed that it was for this reason that Riddick pressed that she train with Duncan. The two men were similar in many ways. Their presence and the authority they commanded without so much as a word, backed up by the iron will to act, made them both born leaders. Although Jack believed that Duncan was more born to lead than Riddick, if only because Riddick never wanted it, preferring to be left alone.

Although Jack could be alone, had trained to be alone without help of any kind, she wouldn't say that she preferred it. When she had run from her situation as a young girl, she had wanted the hurt to stop but she hadn't wanted to be alone. Even then, when the opportunity to be with others had arisen on the hammerhead planet, she had chosen to be with Shazza. And later with Riddick. If anything, she had chosen Riddick first, at first sight. Jack B Badd from that moment on. Even then, she had chosen to be with someone else, even if it was just one other person.

So unlike Riddick, she didn't like to be alone. And she wasn't alone. She snorted quietly, thinking about how Duncan had set her up to take the lead of the particular mission they were on. Even on the off chance that she did want solitude, there wasn't much of a chance of that happening with both Duncan and Riddick pressing her to take her place as a leader.

Up ahead, the trail forked with one branch heading off to the left and a second, less travelled branch continuing to follow the contour of the shore. As they hadn't spoken about which route to take beforehand, Jack trotted ahead and blocked the left hand trail with the body of her horse and pointed first at Duncan and then down the seaward trail. A quick nod and Duncan held his hand up to keep the other riders back before he spurred his mount toward the narrower trail. Small rocks clattered and tumbled down a small incline and then the tail of Duncan's horse disappeared from sight.

Pulling a blade from its sheath, Jack turned in her saddle so that she could both watch for Duncan's return and keep the line in sight at the same time. In front of her, Shazza had the spear raised up to her shoulder, its long tip pointing out towards the trail where Duncan had gone, the reins of the horse tucked beneath her, leaving her hands free should she need them. Behind her, one of the militiamen slipped off his horse without a sound and moved up to the trail head, crossbow out and waiting silently. The other two also had theirs raised. At the back of the line, Hammersmith walked his horse backward into the trees and if Jack hadn't spent seven years hunting with Riddick, she would have never seen him at all.

_'Nice,'_ she thought, as her horse tossed its head and shuffled in place, anxious to be moving. Giving the animal a pat on the side of its neck, she brought its head up and pulled it in a tight circle, heading back along the line until she had circled where Hammersmith and his horse had once stood. Other than shifting slightly to make room for her, none of the others moved from their places and the air was silent, even the horses stilled, only their tails flicking against their sides.

The whisper of wood pulled from a sheath had Jack glance across to where Hammersmith had disappeared into the forest. A glint of light fell on the chain first and then the morningstar. Instinctively her belly tightened but Hammersmith wasn't watching her; his regard halved between the trail head and the three militiamen. It made sense to her that if there was to be trouble, it would come from those that had issue with her leadership and that now, away from Riddick at least, might choose to do something about it. Jack didn't put much thought into wondering what Hammersmith would do if he was called upon to act against them; it was clear that he would act and Duncan put much stock in his ability which only raised him in her eyes. Riddick would have eliminated the threat, she knew. He would have said that it wasn't worth the risk to always wonder whether a guy would kill you in your sleep. While Duncan had no issue with killing, she knew that he would handle it differently. It was in that spirit that she nudged her horse forward and motioned to Hammersmith, palm down. Another subtle nod and he lowered the weapon, the deadly weight of the morningstar swinging ever so slightly below the horse's belly.

It wasn't so much a matter of trust as it was a matter of trust for now. She would do things Duncan's way until she had to do things Riddick's way. Her way. With that in mind, she spurred the horse forward on the right hand side of the trail, making a full circle around her group and passing slowly alongside the two horsed militiamen. Close enough that her boot brushed and caught their attention. It pleased her that, aside from the briefest of glances, neither took their eyes from the trail head; their weapons never wavered. Still, she made a point to not cross in front of them but remained at the side, her drawn weapon tucked against her forearm as Riddick had taught her.

"Nicely done," she said quietly, patting the neck of the nearest militiaman's horse as she watched Duncan appear at the head of the trail, giving the all clear.

"No problem," the man said, cracking an easy smile as he eased back the tension on his crossbow, putting it at rest against his thigh. The two horsed men shifted over on the trail as their third rejoined them and then they were on the move again, edging carefully down the trail head until the ground levelled out again.

Once Jack had room to move, she held her horse back until Hammersmith passed her by, at which point she swung around the back of his horse and came up on his other side, resting a hand on his shoulder briefly. "Thanks," she said, quietly so that it didn't travel.

He said nothing, just another of his quiet nods. Like Riddick and the other men in her life, she took more from it than what would be said aloud. Returning the nod, she pressed her heels against the side of her horse and retook her place at the front of the line.

"What's it look like up there?" she asked as she passed came alongside Duncan.

"Clear ground. A few trees, sparse once we get past this first bit," he said as he motioned to the trail ahead. "That goes on for at least a couple of miles. Heavier forest across from us."

"Good. I'd like to make some good time and get back under the cover of deeper forest before night falls."

"We've got a little less than an hour," Shazza said as she held a hand up to the horizon, measuring the distance before the sun disappeared below the sea.

"That's in ground with no shade. It's going to get darker even faster in here and the horses don't like it." Once they had moved down the trail and clearer ground was in sight, she turned her horse neatly in place, Jack held up her hand and stopped the line. "We need to be out of this clearing before nightfall; we can make camp for the night on the other side." Blade in hand, Jack pointed across the sparse forest, into a deeper knot of trees. "Spread out. There's enough space between these trees that we should make some good time." Remaining where she was, Jack watched as the militiamen fanned out between the tall slender trees, with Hammersmith taking up the furthest position. Shazza remained at her side and Duncan held the position closest to the sea. "Move!"

As one they set out. The pack horses were heavily laden and didn't move as fast as she'd like but they made good time. Shadows fell in bars across the backs of the horses and only by looking ahead to the forest beyond could she keep from being mesmerized by the quickly moving patterns. The sun blazed bright orange as it touched the sea as though it fought for its last light. The air cooled suddenly as orange became red and then a fiery pink blaze and the dark of the forest rose up from the ground like something alive.

The horses nickered and fussed at the dimming light and Jack tightened the reins, bringing the beast below her to a trot. It would be slower but kinder. Frightened horses would take time to settle and it was easier to walk a short while in the dark. "Ease up," she called down the line, looking to her left to catch the militiamen. They had already slowed and, as night fell, two of them slipped off the beasts' backs and walked ahead, leading the animals.

Leaning forward, Jack patted the animal's neck and muttered something soothing in as deep a voice as she could manage. "Trail's ahead, follow me," she called out quietly, listening for the others to fall in line. The canopy folded over them, swallowing them up as the last blaze of sunset's light winked out against the sea and then they were in darkness again.

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Alone on the deck of the Moorglade, Riddick leaned heavily into the warm wood of the railing. The setting sun's last rays brightened to an intense white light in his altered vision even behind the goggles, and he opened them only periodically. As scents changed he would glance briefly, as long as it wasn't sunward. Watching as some small animal raced against time for the safety of a burrow or an explosion of black feathers as a crane broke free from beneath the ship's keel, racing low to the grass in the bow wake.

The grassland extended as far as he could see, both in front and to the left of him. The ship flew over the grass but in the expanse, it felt like nothing. Like they could fly forever and never see another thing. The river ran alongside the right of them. Silver light winked off the surface and seemed to dance in the air just above. It was a mirage, a trick of the light, but he watched anyway.

Watched the water and the forest beyond and thought about Jack. The horses had disappeared into the trees but he had continued to watch the area for any signs of activity. Not that there was much that he could really do if anyone were to follow Jack and the others. In the time it would take the Moorglade to slow and take the turn, sending them back toward Sunhillow, any pursuers would be lost. Or dealt with by Jack.

_'Woman can handle herself just fine.'_

From very early on, he had looked at Jack and felt what she was beneath. It had been like looking in a mirror. There was little doubt in his mind that she could easily take care of anything that threatened them. It wasn't her safety that had him out on the deck suffering through bright light he could barely stand. It was something else. At that thought, he made a face, shook his head and stiff-armed himself away from the railing.

_'She don't need you holding her damned hand all the time,'_ he thought, snorting a little at what Jack would actually do if he tried that, holding her hand through everything. _'Probably kill me in my fucking sleep.'_ It had nothing to do with concern for either Jack or Shazza as both women could handle themselves. Striding across the deck toward the bridge, he knew exactly what the problem was. He missed her, her and Shazza both.

Not for any lack of company. As the _Rider_, the militiamen of Trieste 9 treated him with respect, if not outright deference, but what the militiamen offered wasn't real friendship. Riddick knew that, if needed, he could insinuate himself among others, moving amongst people almost as though he was one of them, but he never felt it where it mattered. It never felt real. The two women had been his friends before. Before he was the _Rider_ or a respected leader in a war against the Company. They had been his friends when he had been bitted and chained to a post on a shithole of a planet, about to be food for hammerheads.

Even Theo had come before Trieste 9 and, while they hadn't started out as friends, Riddick wouldn't lie to himself and say it wasn't so. Silently opening the door to the bridge, Riddick slipped inside, with only the muffled click of the latch to give him away. Not that it mattered, as Theo tilted his head ever so slightly at the sound. Merc instincts died hard and while Theo would never have Jack's skill, the old merc still did a fair job of tracking Riddick. Not that he had to.

"How much farther?" Riddick asked as he came up behind Theo and settled against the greenwood rail that ran just in front of the Moorglade's wheel, overlooking the expanse of deck beyond. The wood thrummed faintly with the power that ran the ship.

"We'll have to slow down a bit once it's full dark just to be on the safe side but I figure we'll be there by the middle of the day tomorrow, maybe a little later if we make any stops along the way," Theo said as he ran off the distances in his head. There was a chart unrolled on the table behind him but he didn't need to look at it any more in order to be sure.

Not moving anything other than his neck, Riddick tilted his head to the side to look over at Theo. Other than a general idea, a direction, there hadn't been a real need to talk specifics. "And there would be where, exactly?"

"There are a couple of smaller towns along this side of the grasslands but we're talking what, maybe fifty people tops? If that?" Shaking his head, Theo made a minute correction in the Moorglade's path, which Riddick felt first beneath his hands as the ship shifted. "No, our best bet is going to see '_Mother'_. It's the biggest settlement. Bigger, more organized militia," he counted off on his fingers, bracing the wheel against his elbow, "and there's the image to think of."

A deep exhale turned into a quiet growl as Riddick looked out across the span of the deck once more. "Command a lot more authority for anything we gotta do that way, if we got '_Mother'_ on side." Not that her consent was needed; Riddick knew that the militia would follow his call, no matter what that call was. Still, it was a powerful image to have the '_Rider'_ stand alongside the elderly woman that, even before Old Thomas' passing, had commanded the respect of so many.

At the wheel, Theo nodded as he made another small course correction, holding the Moorglade to run in the middle of a wide ley line that moved across the grassland. In theory, there was very little need for him to stand at the wheel at all, as the ship would hold true as far as the line ran but Theo stayed. A little more relaxed perhaps but not in any hurry to leave. "She's important," Theo finally added. "Not just because she can put a stamp on whatever army we need to raise, but also for Jack."

"They'll follow Jack," Riddick said quietly, with conviction. He knew it because he would. That was something that he hadn't put a lot of thought into but he knew it was true, that they had reached that point where he would follow her just as she had followed him for years.

"Yeah, some will, no doubt there but there are men here that are going to have a problem following a woman, especially if they haven't met her. Know her like we do. _'Mother'_ could make that easier."

"Jack won't do anything easy," Riddick said with a short laugh, turning around as Johns came in through the door at the back of the bridge, holding a carafe of strong tea in one hand and three earthenware cups in the other.

"True," Theo agreed, sharing the laugh as he made space at the wheel for Johns to take his place after taking the tea from him. "But it's not like we'd have to tell her and if we can find a way to make people follow her..."

"...Then she's not going to have to force anybody," Riddick finished for him as he poured a cup of tea and stepped out onto the darkened deck.

"Exactly."

_© Copyright xxxevilgrinxxx 22 June2010

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_

**Thanks!**

**InsaneKitty:** I've really been struggling with this story, no doubt there. The desire to write it is still there but it's been hard to write, especially after I had to change what I was doing. I'm hoping it will unwedge itself from the creases of my brain a little more easily now.

**Saismaat:** It's a weird transition. I remember having this same issue when "Rider" added extra characters as well, like Theo in the beginning, and especially Bishop and Duncam Warfield later on (which is the most similar parallel here, given that they were both distant Company members that hadn't been introduced before. As for Adams, it's not necessary to know who she is just yet, but it will become clearer, as that storyline plays out. If it helps, I had a hell of a time with the transition too :D


	6. Chapter 6

thank you's at the bottom :)

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**Jack 6**

"We need to get these horses settled," Jack called out as she hopped off the back of the beast she rode, holding the reins tightly in her fist even as she resumed her soothing muttering. Nightfall was enough in itself to make the animals nervous but the wind off the sea howled as it wove its way through the trees, making an eerie whistling that came out of nowhere and everywhere at once. It was something she was accustomed to but it unsettled the horses, making them nicker and stamp their hooves in a near-panic, the whites of their eyes visible even in the dark.

"Here, I'll take her," one of the militiamen said, coming up beside Jack and taking the reins from her hands. "They don't like this noise at all."

"Mmhm," she agreed, stepping away from the skittish horse and making room for him to stand close to the animal. She didn't bother with a more in-depth answer; the man wasn't talking to her. Just talking, the soothing rhythm of his words dropping into a cadence that meant nothing but comfort. It settled her horse and the beast dropped its large head, whuffling at the forest floor even as the man led it off to stand with the others where they drew comfort from each other. The illusion of safety in a rope corral hastily constructed amidst the trees.

With no light, they moved carefully, deliberately. They spoke quietly, not to speak, but to locate each other in the dark. A circle, a rough camp, began to form, with two militiamen staying near the horses, settling the animals until she no longer heard their nervous whinnying and foot stamps. Long accustomed to moving silently in the dark, Jack slipped up behind Duncan, resting a hand on his back as she moved past without a word. The warm, familiar smell of Shazza was close and Jack moved on, pleased to find Hammersmith and the last of the militiamen unpacking some of their supplies.

"I hope you've got something to eat in there," she said as she passed the two men. Neither startled overtly. "Don't know about all'a you, but I'm starving."

"My wife packed a feast. No saying how good it'll be," one laughed good naturedly, joined in by a couple of the others.

Jack closed her eyes, trying to recall if she had ever met the man's wife but she was unable to come up with a name although she did remember the woman's cooking. Despite the laughter coming from the others, Jack didn't remember it as being all that bad. Then again, she and Riddick seemed to be having a running bet about who could eat the worst thing when they were on one of their hunting trips. Meals were cold and more often raw. She remembered crunching on bugs once, grinning through a mouthful of legs at Riddick's bland look of fleeting distaste. Nothing the man's wife could offer up would be anywhere near that bad.

Still, she wracked her memory for something specific about the woman. "Did she pack any of that bread? With the dried berries?" It was generic enough, she hoped, that even if she was wrong, it would be an opening.

The man dropped the flap on the pack, settling it against the bole of a tree with the others that they had taken off the horses. "Yeah, she did," he said as he shuffled what he had in his hands before passing a cloth wrapped package to Jack. "I like that too," he added, more sincere.

Standing close to the man, Jack jerked her head over to the centre of the small clearing. "Whatever you've got, come put it in the middle and we'll see what we have to share. It won't be hot, but," she trailed off as she moved past the men, going for her own horse, untying the straps to her pack and easily finding the stash of tea she had left on the top of her other supplies. Despite what she had said aloud, it didn't matter to her whether she ate or not. She was accustomed to going hungry and, while it wasn't a state she preferred, it didn't cause her much discomfort. Tea on a cool night was another matter. A luxury she would savour.

"We'll get a fire going," she said, letting her voice carry to the others. "Keep it low." No one asked why and it pleased her that an explanation wasn't necessary. In a space between the trees, the ground cover was cleared away and a small pit was carefully dug. On her knees, Shazza built a small pile of dried brush and set about starting a fire, keeping it low and easily concealed. Just enough to boil water for tea and give them enough light to not stumble around in the dark.

On the ground before the fire pit, one of the men spread out a blanket taken from the back of a horse and they piled their offerings in the middle. There was bread, some dried fruit, hunks of cured meat and a rind of cheese. Jack kept her tea off to the side, to wait for the fire to build enough to boil a kettle of water.

"That _is_ a feast," Shazza said, looking up at the collected food beside her. Flames caught and she added a few larger pieces from the pile of dried twigs and brush she had beside her. Carefully, she built the fire no higher than the edge of the pit and the clearing lit faintly with firelight.

As the fire brightened, they sat in a rough circle around the pit. On one side sat Jack, Shazza and Duncan. Directly across from Jack sat Hammersmith, with the three militiamen on either side of him. Using a small skinning blade that she pulled from her belt, Shazza cut a small piece of cheese and tore off a hunk of bread before she passed what was in her hand around the fire pit. In silence, they passed food around as the kettle got hot.

Beside her, Duncan shifted his weight slightly and rubbed his thigh just above his old injury. Riding was better than walking or running but it still cost him and Jack knew that he would be stiff for a couple of hours more. When the water finally boiled, she reached out for the sturdy wooden handle of the kettle, poured him a cup and passed it to him before offering to the others. Asking with her eyes, she looked quickly at his leg and then up at him. At his subtle nod, she turned back to the fire, pouring cup after cup and passing them round.

"First watch?" she asked him, taking a sip of her tea and nearly groaning in pleasure.

"Yeah," he said. "Make sure you get at least four hours. You take the back watch?"

"Works for me," she nodded. "Who's got the mid?" she asked, looking across the fire at the militiamen.

"I'll take it," the man beside Hammersmith said, raising his cup.

Groaning quietly under his breath, Duncan pushed up off the ground, his leg stiff. Jack took his cup from him but otherwise didn't move to help. It wasn't needed and, while Duncan would never say so, it wasn't welcome. From years of experience, she knew that he would limp heavily for a short while and then his gait would ease as the pain receded. Or as he pushed it into the background. If it got bad enough, there were herbs that he could take but she knew that he wouldn't.

"Going for a look around. You should get some sleep," he said as he moved past her, his hand heavy on her shoulder for a moment.

Ignoring the others around the fire, Jack wolfed a piece of cheese and washed down the last of her bread with tea. Beside her, Shazza finished more slowly, her back pressed into the bole of a tree, a blanket around her shoulders. A last look around the fire pit and Jack put her cup against the ring of stones before curling up on her side, resting her head on her arm. Let her eyes drift to half-mast but she was nowhere near asleep, not yet. Her stillness made listening even easier and she reached out, listening to the sound of Duncan making his rounds, his still-stiff leg making his foot drag ever so slightly, the only sound that gave him away.

Through slitted eyes, she watched as one by one the militiamen did the same, wrapping themselves in blankets from their packs and falling off to sleep. Propped against a fallen log, Hammersmith was last and if not for the steady sound of his breath, Jack would have thought he was awake, but he wasn't. Like her, his hand rested on the hilt of a blade, even in sleep. It was an odd but familiar comfort. Lastly, Shazza nudged and pressed until she found a comfortable spot behind Jack, wrapping an arm around her waist before pulling the blanket over them both.

Even then, Jack didn't fall asleep right away; she rarely did. Like Riddick, she slept light, in a series of catnaps that would allow her to rest in a state of half-alertness in case she had to wake in a hurry. As Shazza slept, she pulled Jack closer and nuzzled her nose into the stubble of her neck and Jack had to wonder if it was comforting that she and Riddick were so alike in that way. As the breathing of the others slowed and deepened, Jack finally closed her eyes and let herself doze off.

Quiet and uneventful, Jack dozed easily through Duncan's watch and most of the second watch, only waking at the faint sound of rustling leaves as the militiaman made another round of their encampment. She did not wake in a hurry but as Riddick had taught her: in small steps until she was ready to move at once. Eyes slitted, she peered out across the low embers of the fire pit, getting accustomed to the light. Stretched the muscles in her leg and back so that could get up gracefully, rather than with pins and needles. Lastly, she uncoiled herself from Shazza, keeping the blanket from flapping or pulling. Crouched, she waited until Shazza pulled the warm blanket closer around herself and only then stood, nodding to the third watchman.

"Still got 'bout an hour or so, if ya wanted to catch a bit more sleep," he said to her as they moved closer to the fire where he had been heating more water for tea.

"I don't sleep much." She dumped some leaves out of her cup and placed it on a rock beside his. "You want an extra hour?"

"Don't much matter to me," he said with a shrug. "I don't sleep that much either, not on the road."

That they were nowhere near a road changed nothing; Jack knew exactly what he meant. "Can't hurt to have another set of eyes anyway."

"John," he offered, holding out a cup of tea to her.

"Jack." She shook his hand once, hard, after switching the cup to her other hand. He already knew her name but that hardly mattered. It still made her laugh a little that the basic necessities of dealing with other people was something that she had learned from Riddick, and that it was so effective. They sat away from the fire, in the shadows of the trees. The tea was hot and Jack closed her eyes as the heat hit her throat, warming all the way to her belly. She had eaten the night before but knew from experience that even if she hadn't, the tea would have filled her. "Oh, that's good," she groaned quietly.

"Second best way in the world to wake up."

Snorting, she looked his way and then back across the sleeping shapes of the others. "Agreed."

They were quiet for a time and Jack rested her head against the tree, listening to the sounds of the forest around them. It was a good quiet. Finishing his tea, John set the cup down beside him and quietly pulled out a pipe, which he offered and she refused. Once he had it going, he turned to look at her again and she let him look. She could feel him glance at her shorn head and the corded muscles in her arms, before resting on the necklace she wore, with its seven fangs, one for every year she had hunted with Riddick.

"Hope ya don't take this wrong but it's weird to see a woman live like this. To want to anyway."

Valid question, she knew, and shrugged, because it didn't matter. She had long since stepped away from the norm. Lived and breathed there, separate. It would have happened anyway but Riddick and what had happened on the hammerhead planet cemented her choice, one very few would understand. Instead, she nodded at the sleeping form of Shazza. "We're different." What he took from that was his own business.

"Yeah, I get that. Just gonna take some getting used to."

It was all the apology he offered and she took it with the small measure of grace Riddick had taught her. _'Can't change nobody... Take what you can when it's offered.'_ It was sound advice. "When the time comes, it's not going to matter whether I'm a woman or not. Those fucks are coming." The militiaman turned to look at her at the harsh language but he said nothing. "When they do, we all better fight, because they're not going to care if the people they kill are women or not."

"I'd heard that they did that. Still a hard thing to picture," he said quietly.

It was a strange thing to say and Jack looked at him, head tilted to the side. From Duncan, Riddick and Theo, she had learned all about what the Company would and wouldn't do. What they were capable of. But she had the benefit of insider knowledge. A merc, a merc-killer and a convicted murderer, all of whom had been in the employ of that same Company at some point.

"You're not from here," she said, just as quietly.

"No, not originally. My parents anyway. I've never been anywhere else, at least as long's I can remember. We lived pretty far off the grid since we came here."

"Hard to keep up on current events."

He snorted, whuffing smoke out in a cloud and what passed for a smile flitted across his features and was gone.

"No news, no vids, just what my folks remembered about life before they came here. I don't remember too much of that but never anything like this." Pointing at the sleeping, still shape of Hammersmith, John continued, " Sometimes he'll talk, if he's had enough to drink but it's a hard thing to imagine. I don't know if I could ever kill a woman. Just not in me."

The teacup was set aside and a blade appeared out of somewhere, danced end over end in her hands as she listened to the man talk. The weight of it was comforting and solid in her hands it moved with familiarity and fluidity. Between her fingers, the blade spinning this way and that with its deadly intent, the hilt skimming easily over the back of her hand and falling back into her palm once more.

"People look back and see what they want to see, what's easy to see." She wasn't sure that she would say anything at all until she did and when she did, it was quiet; her life, what it was before, was shared with very few. What was shared was small, a glimpse, never more. "Don't know what your parents did for a living or why they came here but maybe there's shit they didn't think would do you any good to know. Before you know it, you forget about it, cus it's easier. Don't mean it isn't so or it didn't happen." It wasn't something Riddick had ever said to her but it was like something he would have said; it felt like him.

"That sounds about right, I guess," he nodded solemnly, looking out over the others as they slept. "I'm gonna turn in and catch some sleep before we set out again tomorrow."

Tucking away his pipe and picking up his cup, he turned toward her, hand extended. The handshake was brief and firm, saying a good deal that he had left unsaid, and it made her feel better about the situation with the militiamen.

Left alone, she watched and waited until she was certain that the others were deep asleep and only then did she uncoil from where she sat. With her knife tucked against her forearm she slipped deeper into the trees, making a circle of their camp, listening for anything, everything. Only when she was certain that they were fully alone did she move back to the encampment, staying out of the circle of firelight to save her night vision. To wait for dawn.

* * *

The day had broken still and quiet. Long before anyone would have thought it was dawn, Riddick had stepped silently out onto the deck of the Moorglade, moving up towards the bow, looking over the grassland sea where the light broke pink and white, flickered in a soft line that grew in intensity and spread out, filling the sky with its glow. The light of midday was too much to be borne but dawn was, to put it simply, beautiful, even if it wasn't something he would tell another soul.

Not that there was another soul around to tell. By accident or design, the others remained within the Moorglade, not yet awake or otherwise busy with duties. Looking over the bow wake at where the keel parted the blades of grass, he watched as long-tailed black cranes burst upward out of the green, soaring above briefly before darting below, only to burst up once more. Mesmerized, he stood there for an untold amount of time. In one of Theo's books, he had read about dolphins that did the same thing, back on Earth. It was supposed to bring luck. He had never seen a dolphin. If it was lucky, he would take that.

As the sun rose higher and the Moorglade turned gently towards it, Riddick squinted against the bright white glare. Going inside was an option but not one he took. Truth be told, he found that he liked this time of the morning, too much light or not. Liked the stillness and the quiet. Liked the smell of the grass, the way it still smelled cool and damp and he could still smell the night in it. The sight held nothing to a bright lit night under Trieste's two moons but it was close.

At the soft sound of someone clearing their throat, Riddick stopped endlessly turning over the knife he was absently holding and it disappeared somewhere into his clothing but he didn't step away from the rail. It wasn't meant to be an interruption, just an announcement of presence. It was never a good idea to startle a man with a knife under any circumstances but Riddick was a special case. Riddick had heard him the moment he had opened the door that led from the bridge to the deck. Theo walked up on his right and took a spot at the rail, holding out a cup of tea.

"The village is less than an hour out. I sent Johns below to load up the weapons and let them over the side," Theo said as he leaned his elbows on the rail and looked out bow. That it was a familiar sight never seemed to shake his simple joy in taking it in.

Looking down into the contents of the cup before he took a long draught, Riddick hummed in agreement, a sound low in his throat that Theo nodded along with. "Nothing quite like coming in hot with all your guns out."

Looking over at him, Theo grinned and snorted out a quiet laugh. "This whole thing is as much image as anything else..."

"One hell of a fucking image," Riddick finished for him.

"That she is."

The two men were content to stand in comfortable silence, finishing their tea, listening as Johns and another man dropped spear tips suspended on chains over the side of the ship. They flew out to the sides, to gather up energy as they moved through the ley lines. In no time at all the intricately etched weapons would glow with a blue fire that would spread and brighten, joining together until, as the Moorglade came into the final run before the village, they would emit a white light that the ship looked to ride upon. Very little left Riddick awestruck, something he usually reserved for fellow predators, but he could understand how someone could see the ship approach and be struck with an overwhelming sense of her power. And as he was tied so closely to the ship, of his power.

"We're good to go," Johns called out as he dropped the last of the spear tips over the side, raising an arm in a wave as he turned on his heel and went back inside.

"That's my cue," Theo smirked and patted Riddick on the arm as he turned back towards the bridge. For the rest of the short ride into the village, Riddick would stay at the rail in the bow of the ship, with the rest of the crew standing along the sides, arms showing. Even after all this time, he was unaccustomed to such an open display, preferring to not be seen until it was too late and disappearing before anyone even knew he had been there. Or not to be seen at all. Both Duncan and Theo had impressed on him what a simple image could achieve and whether he was comfortable with it or not, they were right. And it was an incredible feeling, to stand at the bow as they came in, feeling every eye on him. Pride, of course, and the instinctive wariness that came with it.

People came out of their houses, out of the forest, to just watch in awe as the Moorglade advanced, ever faster as Theo opened up and let her have her head as they came down the final stretch before the village. They were watching him as well and he felt the familiar flush of pride. Parents tried and failed to hold back their children and they ran through the tall grass far ahead of the ship. Riddick watched them carefully but knew they would never be fast enough to reach the ship, to be in danger from her out-flung sails. As a little girl pushed a boy to the ground in front of her and raced forward, he bit his lip to keep from grinning at her. She wouldn't see him do it in any case. It made him think of Jack, a little, and for not the first time he wondered what she was like before they had met. That thought didn't make him smile. He knew enough of her life then to know she would never have run in the grass for the simple pleasure of it. _'Here now though,'_ he thought, looking back for the little girl; her brother had caught up and they stood together, hands shielding their eyes as they watched the ship's passage.

"Hold!" he shouted, as the main settlement came into view. He didn't look to see if the men that stood out on the deck held on; they either would or they wouldn't. Just as coming in hot was done for the sake of image, so was coming to a halt. Not Theo's preferred gradual halt, to rest against some raise in the ground, but Jack's powerful spin on a dime that had the Moorglade come in at full speed and, by a dangerous manoeuvre that required men on the outside to pull the sails into position, settle into her own footprint. The ship would come to rest exactly where Jack put her and it made for a hell of a display of power.

The wind screamed and his knuckles bled white but he held fast as she slewed around, facing back towards the settlement. Spear tips tinkled as they continued to swing forward as far as their chains would allow, snapping at their apogee and coming to rest along the sides of the ship. A quick head count to make sure that no men had gone over the side, or been killed by the sails as they filled and emptied in the dangerous movement, and then he was looking forward again.

Not waiting, Riddick leapt gracefully over the side. Another part of the image, he was first on the ground, looking out over the flattened circle of grass where the ship had neatly spun and landed. Standing beside the ship, he waited and watched the villagers until the sound of boots hit the ground beside him. Theo. No one else would join them. They would remain on the deck of the ship until it was time to leave again.

"I don't know how the hell she does it," Theo muttered, his voice shaken as he cast a glance over his shoulder at the resting ship.

A grin flashed across Riddick's face as he thought of Jack. "Woman's got balls."

"More balls than me. Look at this, I'm still shaking," Theo said as he held his hand out briefly. True enough, it shook ever so slightly.

"Jack's got bigger balls than all'a'us put together," Riddick said quietly as they entered the tall grass and the first of the villagers came alongside. "Not bad for the first time out."

"I'll be glad if I don't have to do that again anytime soon. Hello," Theo finished and addressed the first of the village men that came out of the grass toward them, hand outstretched. None of the men touched Riddick or reached out to him; his position as Rider would inspire awe but distance in any case but many of the men knew Riddick already by reputation. They didn't touch. The children were another matter and, despite their parents' attempts to hold them back, it was only moments before Riddick led a train of jumping children through the grass and toward the forest. Where an elderly woman in white leaned heavily on a staff, an armed escort on either side.

It had been more than a year since Riddick had set eyes on _'Mother'_ but she had aged considerably since then, growing more stooped and frail looking in the time that had passed. The bright light made it hard for him to see clearly, even with his goggles but even so he couldn't miss the cataracts that ghosted over both her eyes, assuring him that if it was hard for him to see, it was even harder for her. She trembled and leaned heavily against her staff as a breeze billowed out the white robes she wore but neither of the two men at her side took her arms or eased their stance. She stood as straight as she was able, unaided.

"Sister, you didn't have to come all this way out here on my account." Riddick sidestepped the hulking presence of the guard on the right, and ignored the one on the left, whose jaw dropped ever so slightly at Riddick's casual greeting, and he stood beside the frail old woman, letting her take his arm in her own time. To everyone else, she was and would always be _'Mother'_, but having never had a mother that he could remember, Riddick called her Sister. He was the only one that dared and perhaps the only one that she would allow.

Her laughter was the sound of dried leaves as she threaded her thin arm through his strong one, patting the back of his hand as she would indulge a young child. "The air will do me good. Walk with me. We've prepared a meal."

With that, she set out in her slow pace, one Riddick kept with some difficulty. The others fanned out around them, with Riddick's train of running children darting from their places behind him, up into the trees ahead, running back to dog at his heels again.

Through the day-dim light of the forest, they wove between trees toward a large clearing set with a single low table, heavily laden with food. Behind Riddick, her guard murmured, unsure what protocol to follow now that they no longer led the elderly woman where she would go. With protocol no concern of his, Riddick ignored them and eyeing the table, led her to the large shaded seat set at one end. _'Mother'_ harrumphed as she settled, holding onto Riddick's arm until she was sure she wouldn't lose her balance.

Rather than let Riddick go once she was seated, she held onto his arm and he took the chair beside hers, with Theo on the other side of Riddick. Only once the head of the table had taken their seats did the rest follow. "Quite the production," he whispered to her as the sound of chairs moving and glasses shifting drove up a cloud of birds from their roosts.

Another dry laugh and she turned to take him in with eyes more clear than they had been in the bright light of day. The canopy that extended over her chair cast them both into a near-dark, separating them from the others cleanly, almost intimately. "It doesn't suit you, I know. Still, a good meal is a good meal and you have a tale to tell us, I'm thinking."

All the image making aside, Riddick had never cared to mince words. "Company's back," he started off simply. At her sharp appraisal, he continued. "We're watching for now, seeing what they're up to, but it's gonna be war; those fucks don't know how to bring anything else."

Militiamen around the table leaned in attentively, the noon meal all but ignored in front of them and a loud murmuring went up which she silenced with a raise of her thin white hand. "They always come back. They try us so that we try ourselves."

Stock still, Riddick looked up past her head to take in Theo on the other side. A subtle slow nod from Theo and Riddick thought harder on what she had said. That the Company had come back was not in question, which left the rest of what she had said. There was no sorrow in it, no defeat, just a defiant resoluteness that he understood all too well. They fought back. Every time. He took that into himself. He got it.

"Gonna be a lot of killing and dying if they come back in force. You ready for that, Sister?" He didn't doubt her but he knew it was one thing to say you were ready for a fight and another for it to be true. Beneath the translucent veil of her cataracts, ghostly familiar steel grey eyes held his and, despite the indignities age had settled upon her, her jaw tensed in a hard line. Also familiar.

"Killing and dying to be had on both sides." All murmured conversation at the table died with her words, as they listened intently. "Ready? We have always been ready." The spell broke as she shifted in her seat and looked across at the others. "What have we and what do we need?"

"We've got a tracking party looking for the soldiers that managed to land," Theo started, after taking some water from an earthenware carafe from the middle of the table. With all eyes at the table on him, he stood and quickly outlined what plans they had made, saving Jack for last.

"She's-"

Conversations started and stopped as militiamen around the table carefully sorted through their words. Alone, they wouldn't have hesitated to state what was on their minds. That Jack was little more than a girl, and a young one at that. They looked carefully between Riddick and _'Mother'._

"She is very young for this. Wouldn't it be ...safer... to have someone else take that responsibility?" A well-respected fighter stood, having taken the measure of his compatriot's glances. "If she was _my_ daughter," he paused and looked hard at Riddick, who held the look coldly, "I'd hate to have her in that kind of danger."

Silence fell as the man finished and, a last look at his fellow militiamen around the table, took his seat. It felt as though no one at the table breathed.

If not for the elderly woman's hand on his arm, Riddick believed that he would jump across the space that divided him from the large militiaman and cut his throat before he could utter another word. That Jack was able to fight her own battles, that she needed to, pushed his violent urges to the background. And still he held silent for another breath, just watching the other man.

"Jack is mine," he growled, in a low and dangerous tone that had those around the table freeze still, waiting for a threat to pass. Riddick had never claimed Jack as a daughter in so many words. To him it was never so simple, what Jack was to him. Sister, daughter, friend. It had never come up and he wasn't sure that he could say it and feel the depth of the sentiment. A man with no family, how could he sum up the depth of what Jack meant to him in a word that held little to no meaning to him? 'Mine' was a word that he understood. That Jack would understand. And Jack was _his_.

"So hear me when I say this," he continued, leaning forward against the table, away from the woman at his side. Taking in all who sat there. "Jack is no more a little girl than I am. Hasn't been for a fuck of a long time. When time comes for killing and dying -"

_'I'd follow her into hell.'_

"- There's no choice in who dies. Company don't give a fuck about that shit." As the memory washed over him, of the sound of thousands of convicts, the worst of the worst, let loose on some unsuspecting world, Riddick felt cold, a near-dread that stole all the warmth out of the afternoon. "I _know_. I've been there, on the ground when the Company got sent in for some fucking mudball they wanted. You think they care if it's women? If you knew what was coming, you'd put a weapon in the hands of every fuck you got. Least they stand a chance."

Without being aware, Riddick had risen to his feet, his voice and emotions rising with him, unbidden, lending power and conviction. "The only chance you've got is if _everybody_ fights. That means your women too. Cross Jack on this," he paused to take in the faces of the men around the table. "Cross Jack, and you'll be the first to die. She won't hesitate. She doesn't know how."

"Women can't -" one of the men started to interrupt.

"You sure about that?" Facing the man, Riddick barked back as his face pulled into a cold not-smile even as his voice became cold and clear, more dangerous. "Or is that what you're afraid of. That they can and you won't be able to get them to put the weapons down after?"

Around the table, silence fell once more and Riddick watched them all, to see where trouble would come from next. Satisfied, he eased his stance slightly.

"It is done then," _'Mother'_ stated strongly, her hand curling around Riddick's forearm as she tried to pull herself up. On the other side of her, Theo helped her to stand. "An old woman could use a walk. Walk with me." Her hand on Riddick's arm, there was little doubt who she wished to walk with but the others at the table rose as a show of respect.

As Riddick left the table, Theo remained standing as the militiamen again took their seats, reaching for the dishes around the table. As Riddick walked off into the gloom of the trees, he half-listened as Theo took up the fight he had left, arguing more deftly if not as forcefully.

"I need to rest."

In the quiet, away from the others, his anger had faded and he found that he liked walking with her. She didn't impose on him. He didn't think that he imposed on her either. It was comfortable and, not surprisingly, reminded him of Shazza. A fallen trunk, soft with moss and time, lay across the goat trail of a path they had gone down, and he led her to it, holding her arm until she sat, then taking a seat beside her.

From where they sat, the table conversation was a muted drone, melting into the surrounding murmur of the forest, and he was glad to have it behind him.

"They have had it their own way for so long, they don't know any other," she offered quietly, looking back the way they had come.

Humming low in his throat, he nodded slightly in agreement with her.

"I bear some blame of that. There were so many times I could have spoken but there never seemed much of a need. We've had peace for so long. Perhaps it's a foolish old woman's wish, but I'd hoped," she sighed and untangled her arm from his, trading one intimacy for another as she turned to face him fully. "I'd hoped." She left it like that, no further explanation necessary.

"You knew it would come anyway."

Looking away from him, she gazed intently at the hands in her lap, knotted, the skin thinned with age. "Yes." A near-lifetime of things undone and unsaid, passed in a single word. "I have something."

He watched her intently as she reached up to her neck and, moving the robes out of the way, touched the torque that circled her throat. A muted silver, it was etched in the same fashion as the Moorglade's weaponry. In her old age, it hung low against her collarbone and she removed it easily enough, handing it over to him.

Unsure of what to do with it or what it meant, he took it from her, turning it over in his hands. From its size, it was clear that it wasn't intended for him to wear. For any man to wear. "Is this for Jack?"

"Jack has all that she needs. This is for another."

"Shazza," he whispered, as he held the circle a little closer, once he knew who it was for.

"I have been weak and I have been quiet. And only now do I say anything, when it is far too late," she said with a small measure of self-contempt. "I am dying and have spent far too long wishing a thing would never be when I should have been preparing for what is inevitable. The world has changed," she said with a growing sharpness, an awareness. "_You_ are a part of that change. You and Jack and Shazza."

"With what we brought on your heads, I don't think we changed anything for the good."

As Riddick turned the circle of silver over in his hands, she reached out for him, her thin hand resting against the bare skin of his chest. Unused to being touched, he remained still through an act of will as she moved her hand down, settling her palm over his heart.

"No?" she raised a brow at him, intelligence flitting beneath her now-pale grey eyes. "I am dying, Riddick," she repeated, stronger this time as sharp eyes pinned him. "I have been for years but I feel it more now, time moving faster, and I am almost out of time. If I don't act now..."

Beneath her hand, his skin grew warm and he looked down at his chest in surprise, his jaw dropping as he watched blue fire flicker and spark over the surface. Still gaping slightly, he covered her hand with his own, tore his eyes away as the form of a hand print re-appeared on his chest, and looked into the elderly woman's face.

"You're..."

"Yes."

Beneath their hands, his skin burned. He closed his eyes, remembering. Shazza trembled with the force that ran through her after she brought the Company ship down with a single spear shot from the bow of the Moorglade. And when she touched him? A near-sexual flush ran through him and he shuddered at the memory. He had dreamt of Shazza before they had ever set foot on Trieste 9, a fierce warrior woman on the deck of the ship, and now Shazza's image flickered between her dark and the light of the woman that sat before him. Her hair had been long and blonde or maybe light brown, he couldn't tell. It wasn't a Company ship that they faced but a small army of horsemen.

The burning in his chest faded as the woman dropped her hand to her lap, breathing heavily. So closely linked just seconds ago, he could feel her exhaustion but there was nothing he could do about it. Holding his arm out, he let her hold onto him again. It was a small comfort but comfort wasn't something he was familiar with, even after all this time. He did what he could.

"I would," she paused to breath heavily and then sat up a little straighter, "I would deliver it myself but I don't think I will last that long. Perhaps having you do this is part of the change that's coming. I'm glad it is done." She tried to stand and Riddick helped her to her feet, keeping an arm at her back until she was steady.

The remembered dream bothered him, keeping him quiet as they slowly walked back down the path towards the others. It wasn't new; the dream had always bothered him, dropping him into the middle of events he was powerless to control or alter. When they had gone half the distance, he stopped her again, which she didn't seem to mind. "I saw you. In a dream. You and Shazza. It got all mixed up. Was I dreaming about her? Or you?"

The crinkles at the edges of her eyes deepened as she looked up at him shrewdly. "Yes," she answered cryptically, leaving it for him to decide who it was that he had seen. Or even if it mattered. "I have seen you too. Probably long before you were even born." At that, she smiled up at him gently, squeezing his arm. "We all have our dreams, Riddick."

"I don't believe in fate," he said with a small measure of bitterness. It had been years since the circumstances of his birth or his existence in one hell hole after another filled him with anger and that was in no small part due to the influence of the Holy Man and his god, but the seed of it still burned and would never be wiped away altogether. Faith he had come to accept, at least in part, but fate was another beast.

She didn't pull away but stepped closer and raised a hand to touch his cheek, not caring that he tried to pull away. "It doesn't matter that you don't believe. Fate believes in you." For a moment as she looked up at him intently, he thought she would add something else but if she intended to, she had reconsidered.

When the table came into view, he stowed his questions away, uncertain that he wanted to have his doubts pulled out for everyone to see. In any case, all her answers led to more questions and he wondered, if the Holy Man had lived, if all their conversations would have been that way too.

At the table, _'Mother'_ sat, waving away any aid from the stood in the middle of one of the long sides and, as Riddick had seen him do many times before, he had created a makeshift map out of various things laid out before them. The other men stood closely around him and, as one, they batted around strategies, all the while eating as they spoke.

"Couldn't find anything more dignified than a chicken leg for the Moorglade?" Riddick asked as he caught sight of Theo steering the Moorglade, in this case a chicken leg with a bite taken out of it, across what Riddick believed was the grassland further on, headed toward the sea.

Looking up from the surface of the table, Theo grinned and swept his arm over the rest of the food. "I was going to use a bun but it kept disappearing." At this, all of the men at the table burst into laughter, turning to look at one of their own who, as fate would have it, had in his hand a bun stuffed with meat from one of the platters. "We think that if we get here," Theo motioned to a spot that, to Riddick, looked like it was far out to sea, "we could watch this whole area unseen from the shore."

For a scenario scripted in half-chewed chicken legs and heaps of salad greens turned out onto the table, it wasn't a bad map and Riddick nodded as he moved away from the elderly woman's side to a place beside Theo. Taking the chicken leg, Riddick moved it along the edge of the shoreline. "By day we'd have to move further out," he said, pulling the Moorglade far away from the table's edge, "or any spotters they've got here and here," he motioned to places along the edge of the table that corresponded to high points, "could send up an alert."

Not letting go of the leg, Riddick leaned farther over the table, moving some elements around to show the rocky region where Jacob Underhill and his men had gone to track the soldiers. On the other side was the forest and in between lay the flat open ground where he knew Jack, Duncan and Shazza would be. "From out at sea," Riddick's voice dropped as he pictured the ground in his mind's eye, "we got a good view of all'a this."

On the other side of the table, several of the militiamen nodded, the plan coming clear as they moved their own pieces onto the map. The vast grassland expanse would be Jack's, at least for the moment, with the rest of their number held in reserve, out of sight. From their position off-shore, Riddick knew that he could get to Jack and the others within hours if need be. Just thinking of Jack and Shazza had him run his hand over the warm silver of the torque hidden in his robes and he cast a long look at the elderly woman at the end of the table. She didn't eat, just sat quietly, as though she was conserving what little energy he had left. Whether Jack needed his help or not, Riddick knew that he'd have to see her – and Shazza – again soon.

"That's settled then," Theo said, looking up at each of the militiamen in turn, waiting for their nod. There wasn't much to be planned in any case and the need for discretion had been discussed while Riddick had spoken with the woman in the forest. "Let's not let this go to waste!"

The conversation over the meal itself was far more lighthearted than what had come before it and it didn't take long for the men at the table to wolf down the feast that had been laid out before them. Several times, Riddick caught Theo's eye as the other man watched him carefully. Usually, Riddick had a healthy appetite but as the meal grew cold and the shadows deepened between the trees, he could do little more than pick at what he had on his plate until finally, he gave up and leaned back, eyes closed behind the quiet his goggles granted him. The need to act was tempered by a hard-earned patience and soon enough, the meal was done and he pushed away from the table.

On their way back to the grassland and the Moorglade, Riddick again took _'Mother's'_ arm, with her guard strung out behind and he found it difficult to leave as they moved past the dim light of the forest for the bright mid-day beyond. There were so many things to say but they had been said already. All that was left was to leave.

"We _will_ meet again, Riddick," she said quietly, for his ears alone.

Standing in the tall grass, he turned to her, still holding her arm, unsure what could be said to that. He knew that he would never see her alive again. Long ago he would have dismissed what she said but in the passing years he had often seen the Holy Man in his dreams and wouldn't lie to himself. Still, no words came, and he gently squeezed her arm before he let her go into the care of the militiamen that came up to either side of her.

"Every time with you," Theo quipped as from the edge of the forest and out of the grass, children broke free from their parents and scampered around the militiamen before they settled on dogging Riddick's steps.

Snorting under his breath, Riddick strode through the grass, unmindful of the following he had gathered. As they neared the Moorglade, most of the children fell back, darting back to their parents who stood a short distance away. Not all of them went easily and, hearing a commotion, Riddick glanced back over his shoulder at the sight of a small girl who had pulled her arm free from her mother and shot forward through grass taller than she was, headed straight for him. The girl's mother looked stricken, torn between a need to rein in her child and a fear of breaking past the line of men that stood in her way.

_'You are part of that change.'_

Riddick stopped and turned back to face the girl, who also stopped dead in her tracks, looking nervous and unsure now that she was spotted. Behind her, her mother continued to call but the girl didn't turn back. The child's hair was a wild, light-coloured tangle above a dress that was only a shade or two darker than the grass she stood in and, as Riddick continued to watch the girl, he realized that it was the same child that had pushed down her brother in her drive to reach the Moorglade as they had flown in.

Rather than turn back to the ship and continue on, Riddick extended his hand to the child who darted forward and, fearlessly, put her hand in his. "You're a brave girl; I admire that. You got a name?"

"Diana," she said, looking up at him with a beaming smile, her mother's cries all but ignored.

In a few quick strides they had reached the side of the Moorglade and the child faltered slightly but didn't pull away. With her free hand, she reached out and touched the smooth green wood of the ship's side, resting her hand there for a moment before pulling it back.

"Remember this moment."

Looking up at him seriously, she nodded, and only then did he let her go, watching her dart through the grass to her mother. From above, Theo dropped down the heavy tow rope and Riddick looped it around his wrist, settling his weight. Getting ready to run.

© Copyright 17 September 2010 xxxevilgrinxxx

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**Saismaat**: thank you for catching my nits :)

You know what it's like - when you've read and reread so many times that you no longer see it anymore. Yikes! I've fixed what I could but yeah, it still feels a little expositiony to me. I think I'm juggling between a) this is a sequel so it's all been said already and b) I want it to be able to exist on its own as well, so that reading the older stuff isn't entirely necessary. It's like navigating in the dark...while smashed...

**Insanekittie**: Yeah, I'm not having a case of the block but it's a wicked case of the slows. I keep hoping that on that magical day when my back gets fixed, that I'll be able to spend hours and hours writing again, like I once did. Glad you're still with me :)


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